The Secret Unofficial Vongola Backup Guardians
by Nat Roze
Summary: Kyoko and Haru are out to prove that being light-hearted doesn't necessarily mean being light-headed – or light-weights. And if things keep getting worse -the boys have been kidnapped, honestly!- the girls just might need to take control! ON HIATUS WHILE BEING REWRITTEN, SEE LAST CHAPTER FOR DETAILS
1. Kyoko and Haru Make a Discovery

The Secret Unofficial Vongola Backup Guardians

So. It has come to my attention that, in shonen manga, even those written by women... the girl characters tend to be weak little moe things that need to be protected (with the notable exception of FMA, but that's about it). They fight less, if at all. They're the token healer character. Or they're scared to fight/pacifists/not very strong.

Well, that's about to change here. Instead of me griping about how pathetic the chicks in Reborn are, I'm gonna write a fic where they learn to kick ass and have to save the boys. Watch out, everyone: Kyoko and Haru are about to kick some ass.

You'd better freakin' enjoy this. I know I'm gonna.

* * *

><p>Chapter 1; In which Kyoko and Haru Make a Significant Discovery and Subsequentially Break the Law.<p>

It'd started on a day when Ryohei had practice. The days he had boxing practice, Kyoko always walked home on her own. Sometimes Tsuna would insist on accompanying her, out of some misplaced sense of chivalry (the concept of chivalry, unknown to Kyoko, had been brutally murdered some ten years back by Xanxus), but most of the time she was left to come home by herself to an empty house that her parents hadn't yet returned to from work. She didn't mind it; it gave her a handful of quiet time in which to do her homework, watch girly television shows, and giggle loudly on the phone with Haru.

On the days Ryohei had practice, he never wore his Vongola gear to school. It was an inconvenience for him to have to try and hide it in the locker room while he changed into his boxing gear, he'd said.

Since the time that they were in the future, when Tsuna had told her about the Vongola famiglia and the mafia, Kyoko had always wondered how a mere piece of jewlery could allow people to use… well, in Kyoko's mind it was magic. Tsuna had said "flames", but Kyoko had _seen_ magic. People conjuring colorful fires in their hands and using those fires to do battle and power their weapons spelled out magic to Kyoko.

She was home alone. She had at least an hour. No parents, no Ryohei. Just her. And her brother's Sun Vongola Gear.

She crept into his room, not entirely sure why she was being so cautious if nobody was home. The strange metal armband rested on Ryohei's nightstand, along with a few rings set with yellow stones that he'd been collecting over the course of the few weeks after the incident with the Shimon famiglia and that creep with the weird name (something Italian, with a last name that was a card suit. Kyoko couldn't remember). She'd seen similar rings on Gokudera's hands, only with red stones, and blue ones on Yamamoto, and orange ones on Tsuna. He'd explained as much that each of the colors of the flames did something different, and the kind of flame in your body had to match the type of ring you used.

_Well,_ thought Kyoko,_ Ryohei-oniichan and I are related, right? So if it's a genetic thing, he and I would have the same kind of magic flames. I think._

It was a morbid little curiosity of hers. What if she could use this power, just like her brother? What if it wasn't as special and mysterious as the boys made it seem? What if she could be just as strong as they could, and fight at Tsuna's side like her brother did? They didn't have to do all the protecting all the time, did they? Couldn't Kyoko step in and protect her brother sometimes, instead of him protecting her? Couldn't Kyoko stand up for herself, instead of Tsuna standing up and saving her time after time?

Feminism was an attitude that came in, took up residence like a deadbeat boyfriend, and didn't leave until the mind it'd lodged in became a feminist itself and kicked it out.

Kyoko fiddled with the rings on her brother's nightstand before she selected the one she thought was the prettiest – a simple silver band with sleek spiraling bits curling around a lemon-yellow diamond in the center – and picked it up. She tried it on various fingers –it was obviously sized to fit her brother – before discovering it fit well enough on the pointer finger of her right hand. She slipped it on easily and admired it on her hand. Something about it just made sense to her. It looked right to her (Kyoko assumed it was because the color yellow looked nice with her hair).

"Now," she mumbled to herself, "how did Tsuna say they worked?" It was something about 'resolve' or 'conviction' or something, wasn't it? She had to truly want and need the flame to come out. She had to truly want the power for something.

But what in the world _was_ a resolve anyway? The first thing in Kyoko's mind when she thought the word was _I did that back in January_. The word "resolve" triggered the immediate thought of New Years' resolutions. _I resolve to_… and so on and so forth. Kyoko almost always forgot her New Years' resolutions anyway.

But if that was what 'resolve' was supposed to mean, it didn't make much sense to how Tsuna had described it… unless… _Hm_, she thought. _Something I've resolved to do…_

The first thought in her mind was how beaten up Ryohei had been when they'd brought him home after the Vongola's fight against the Shimon famiglia, and she decided that this must be her 'resolve,' however it was supposed to work. She wanted to protect her brother. She wanted to keep him from fighting, like he'd promised her years ago (a promise, Kyoko noted with annoyance, he'd been breaking with increasing frequency). If it came to that, Kyoko found herself thinking that maybe she'd even fight his battles in his place-

It was startling, because her hands were clasped over her chest and she was looking straight at them when a brilliant, sparkling yellow fire burst forth from the ring. Kyoko immediately pulled her hand back from her body and extended her arm as far as she could reach. The Sun-attribute flame (Kyoko didn't remember the colors and their explanations quite perfectly, but she'd retained enough to know which one was which) danced energetically on the ring, shooting up glittering sparks every now and then. It didn't burn her; she didn't even feel any heat from it. It just… _was_. It was magical.

It was power.

Kyoko let herself relax, and thought about other things, like her homework, and how excited Haru would be when she showed her, and the flame died down and vanished back into the ring with a slight _whoof_. Kyoko pulled the ring off her finger and clasped it tightly in her hand.

So she could. So she _could_ be powerful like the boys, wield magic and fight their fights if she really wanted to. She could teach herself and train, maybe get Bianchi-san to help her learn to use this newfound magic of hers. If she wanted to.

If she wanted to, she could work at it and work at it until she was stronger than Ryohei. Until _she_ was the one protecting _him_.

_Oniichan is sort of forgetful,_ she thought slyly to herself. _I doubt he'll notice if just _one_ of these rings is missing._

She took the diamond-shaped Sun ring, slipped it back on her finger, and vanished out the door of her brother's room, closing it carefully as she went.

Inside her head, brilliant, shining new ideas were spinning.

...

For a little while, at least, Kyoko wanted to keep this to herself. It was her special new toy to play with, and she wanted to play with it ad infinitum. She didn't think she would ever get tired of watching that brilliant, sparkling yellow ignite itself in her hands.

Sitting under a tree in the park by herself, it didn't take her very long to notice things happening each time she lit the flame. She remembered Tsuna had said something about the Sun flames having an 'active' factor, although she hadn't known what that meant. After a while, she began to realize it wasn't just 'active,' it was 'activ_ate_.' The Sun flame dancing on her fingers made things activate.

In the future, Tsuna had mentioned her brother using the Sun flames to heal himself. Kyoko wanted to try this out, but she wasn't one for self-harm and couldn't bring herself to draw her own blood, much less ask anyone else if they'd like to help her test it out. So instead she thought about the concept of that. What healing was, in theory, was regeneration of cells. Her brother, in the future, was using the Sun flames to activate cells and force them to regenerate.

_If it could activate human cells, why not other living cells?_ Kyoko thought.

She sat down on the grass in the park and searched through the greenery until she found a flower bud that hadn't bloomed yet. Taking care to avoid the eyes of the mothers at the park with their children, Kyoko silently lit a tiny flame in her hand and moved it up against the flower bud. She watched in wonder as before her eyes, the tiny bud opened up and bloomed to life in brilliant pink.

Utterly enthralled with this ability of hers, Kyoko scouted out more pre-blossomed flowers and coaxed them into blooming in her hands.

At one point she got carried away with a dandelion, and before she knew it the yellow petals had continued their activation and become a feathery puffball of seeds. With a wry smile, Kyoko picked the dandelion, blew the seeds out around her, and focused on the flame she'd already input into the flower.

As the seeds landed in the grass around her, Kyoko watched in awe as hundreds of stems rushed up out of the ground and burst into yellow fireworks before her. Half the awe was in the happening of it itself; half of it was in the knowing that she herself was making it happen.

...

It was about ten minutes after the flowers that Kyoko decided she should probably stop leaving Haru out of all the fun; Haru had a tendency to get a little annoyed when she wasn't included in the action. Besides, the sooner she explained it to her friend, the sooner she could show her the flowers.

_Included in the action_, thought Kyoko. _That's exactly what she'd want to be up to. She'd want to be right up there fighting with Tsuna-kun, wouldn't she?_

Haru was completely ecstatic. The prospect of power to protect the boys in her life had seemed just as enthralling to her as it had to Kyoko.

"So what you're saying is," Haru bubbled, "if we can both use these rings like Tsuna-san can, then we can help protect the guys?"

"Us _and_ other people!" Kyoko affirmed. She sat forward on her knees on Haru's bed; she'd gone over to the other girl's house, leaving a note on the counter for her brother. He wouldn't worry about her. She did that often enough that he was used to it. She had an idea she absolutely _had_ to run by Haru. "I mean, think about this for a second: Don't you think it's weird how all of Tsuna-kun's Guardians are boys?"

"Except Chrome-chan," Haru reminded her. Kyoko shook her head in disagreement.

"Yes, technically she is, but there's that other boy who's the same Guardian as her. They're both Tsuna's guardian, and they've got the same power," she mentioned. "Is he her brother or her cousin or something? They look like they're related." Haru paused. "Heck, they look like they're _twins_. They even style their hair the same way!"

"I don't know. We can ask Chrome-chan sometime."

"Right. Either way," Kyoko continued, "technically _he's_ Tsuna-kun's Guardian, right? So what I was thinking is… if we could get enough girls together, one of us for each kind of flame power, then we could be… I don't know, like backup Guardians! The girl version of the Vongola!"

"That sounds like so much fun!" Haru squealed in agreement, pumping a fist into the air exuberantly. And then her face fell and she started fiddling nervously with the hem of her uniform skirt.

"What's wrong?" Kyoko asked carefully. What could possibly be wrong with thanking the boys for saving them so many times by saving them in return?

"Well, it's just…" she mumbled. "You've seen how _hurt_ they come back, haven't you? It's scary, thinking that they get that way in fights with the same powers you want to protect them with. Hahi! Not that I don't want to protect them either," Haru blustered, waving her arms around as if to push the idea away. "Because I do! Totally! Haru will protect Tsuna-san and the Vongola with everything she can! Only… I'll do it carefully so I don't get hurt! Somehow!"

The girls giggled over that for a while before Haru came up with another question.

"Wait, Kyoko-chan… how do I know what kind of power I have? I mean, you and your brother had the same one, which makes sense since you're siblings… but how can _I…"_

"Well," Kyoko started, slipping off her Sun ring, "You can try this one first to see if you're the same kind as me." She handed the ring to Haru, who went through the same sizing test Kyoko had before deciding it fit best on her middle finger. "Tsuna-kun explained how it worked to you too, right?"

"Uh-huh," Haru nodded. "Resolve or something, yeah?"

"Yep."

Haru glared comedically at the ring for about two full minutes before sighing exuberantly and returning it to Kyoko. "Guess I'm not that one, huh?"

"Guess not." Kyoko shook her head. She'd expected as much. There were seven different kinds, after all; it was only a one in seven chance that Haru would have the same power as Kyoko.

"But how can we get our hands on other rings to test what kind I am?" Haru wondered aloud. "I mean, it's not like we could just waltz down to a jewelry store and say, 'gimmie all your magic mafia rings' without them calling the police on us…"

"Well, let's think of it this way: you're not the same kind as me, so that saves us the problem of taking another ring from my brother. And if we want Chrome-chan on our team too, then that's the Mist power taken care of too. So that narrows it down a little bit."

"Right. But what about the other ones?" Haru prompted. "How are we gonna get the other five kinds of rings?"

The girls thought silently for a moment.

"Oh, _there's_ an idea…"

...

The doorbell rang and Tsuna scampered down the stairs to answer it, with Gokudera hot on his heels in case it was an ambush or something on that order. Yamamoto followed lazily after them, not wanting to be left out. I-Pin and Lambo ran circles around Tsuna's feet as he opened the door.

"Oh, Kyoko-chan! Haru! What are you guys doing here?" he announced as the girls came into view on the other side of the door. Both of them were smiling brightly, and Haru carried a box wrapped in a pink cover.

"Since it's the weekend right before summer break, we were celebrating and we made cookies," Kyoko explained. "We were wondering if you wanted to share some with us."

Tsuna smiled and invited the girls in. Gokudera was simultaneously relieved that the boss was safe and slightly annoyed that he hadn't gotten to blow anyone up. Yamamoto just kept on laughing like he always did.

Tsuna took the cookies into the kitchen and spread them out on a plate for everyone to have. Lambo attacked them immediately and with great enthusiasm before anyone else could have a chance, and Gokudera growled at him to be civil and share.

"Ah, Tsuna-kun," Kyoko said suddenly, "may I use your bathroom?"

"Oh, go ahead," he allowed. She skipped lightly out of the room. "Haru, do you guys get out of school on the same day as us?" he asked conversationally as he attempted to grab a cookie away from Lambo.

"I think so," she nodded. "Maybe a day or two different. You guys aren't doing homework, are you? My school hardly has any right now. I think the teachers have just given up or something."

"No, we were earlier though. Now we're just hanging out," Tsuna admitted.

"Playing video games," Yamamoto added cheerfully.

"When we _ought_ to be studying so Jyuudaime doesn't fail the eighth grade!" Gokudera complained.

...

Kyoko did not go to the bathroom. She went to Tsuna's room.

It wasn't the first time she'd been in, but the last time she'd been there she assumed Tsuna had been in a bit of a frenzy to clean up before she arrived. Now, without knowledge that she was going to be in his space, he hadn't bothered to pick up papers and dirty clothes and all manner of random crap that'd been left around his room. It didn't bother Kyoko; her brother's room looked pretty similar most of the time. It was just a teenage boy thing.

In a small box on Tsuna's cluttered desk (Kyoko noticed an entire bottom drawer stuffed full of tests scoring under forty) were a handful of rings he must've been saving for Lambo, because they all had the brilliant citrus-green that denoted they were intended for the Lightning attribute. Kyoko searched through these until she found one she deemed pretty enough, and pocketed it. She doubted Tsuna cared much about those at the moment, because Lambo himself was enough of a problem to deal with that he probably didn't even have time to explain the rings to the kid yet.

On the windowsill were a handful of orange-tinted rings that must've been Tsuna's Sky attribute ones. Despite the fact that he'd told Kyoko that sky was the rarest type of flame (he was surprised that he could use it, because he "failed so hard most of the time," as he'd said), she figured they could search for someone anyway. If they were going to be a full team, they needed one of each. Besides, that could turn out to be the kind of flame Haru could use, so she didn't want to assume anything too early. She selected the least-conspicuous of the rings (Tsuna might not notice one missing, but Reborn probably would, so it was best not to grab an obvious-looking one) and slipped it into her pocket as well.

On the table in the center of the room, along with forgotten homework and a triad of videogame controllers (on the small screen in the corner, an action fighting game sat paused. Yamamoto seemed to be winning), sat a handful of rings that belonged to Gokudera and Yamamoto. They'd likely taken them off to play. Yamamoto's light blue Rain attribute rings were strung along a chain, so he could wear them around his neck and take them off easily for sports. Kyoko slipped one of these off the chain, careful to replace it exactly as it had lay before in case someone noticed. She again selected the least-conspicuous ring, this time out of Gokudera's red Storm attribute ones (he _would_ notice), and took that one as well.

Kyoko returned from the bathroom with a smile on her face. As she did, Haru "happened" to glance at the clock, and with a startled 'Hahi!' insisted that they had to leave in order to help cook dinner back at her house. Tsuna thanked them for the cookies and let them be on their way, showing them to the door and closing it with a smile.

...

Hibari Kyouya lived in a traditional Japanese house that stood out rather incongruously against the rest of the neighborhood. It was easy enough for Haru to sneak in the back through a shoji paper door that had been left open just slightly. She crept carefully down the hallway and tried not to make any noise at all, while Kyoko was at the front door keeping the Namimori prefect distracted with questions about the Disciplinary Committee (she was claiming she was starting a school newspaper and wanted to do an article on them. Haru hoped to god Hibari believed her).

Hibari's room was austere and mostly empty, but at least it was tidy. His closet had been left open; Haru was hardly surprised to see that ninety percent of his clothing was school uniforms (the rest was mostly blacks and dark colors with the occasional blood-red). On his desk, along with his red Disciplinary Committee armband and a math textbook that looked as if it'd never been opened, there was a small cardboard box labeled "mafia stuff from that herbivore Sawada" in black sharpie. Inside the box was a handful of rings with purple stones set into them. Haru dug through them, pulled out one she thought was just a bit too feminine for someone like Hibari, and jammed it hurriedly into her pocket. She scrambled as quietly as she could out the door she'd come in, and made it outside just in time to catch a glimpse of Hibari coming down the hall, after which she eagerly ran for her life.

...

"So aside from Chrome already being our Mist person, and me already being our Sun person," Kyoko began, "Let's try testing the rest on you." She pulled out the rings she'd picked up at Tsuna's house and spread them out on the bed with the Cloud ring Haru had picked up. The quintet of colored stones glittered against the white sheets, reflecting the light from Haru's overhead lamp. "Which one d'you want to try first?"

"Well, when Tsuna-san explained the whole Guardian thing of his," Haru said, "he told me each Guardian had a special purpose. Like… since you're Sun, the Sun Guardian was supposed to be like a bright light protecting everyone or something…" Haru pouted, contemplating the rings. "I don't think I'm Cloud, since that one's supposed to be all aloof and independent like a lone wolf, right?"

"I sorta remember that explanation," Kyoko admitted. "I was more focused on the idea of magic at that point I guess we could find someone else for that one. And, hey, maybe we can get Bianchi-san to be our Storm Guardian! If it works the same way as me and my brother, she ought to have Storm powers, right?"

"Yeah!" Haru agreed enthusiastically. "Hey, here's an idea," she said suddenly. "Why don't I just put on _all_ the rings and focus really hard, and we'll just see which of them lights up!"

Kyoko giggled. "It seems silly, but give it a try. Maybe something'll happen."

Haru nodded and smiled. She slipped the remaining Rain, Sky and Lightning rings onto her hand, fussing around until they all fit her fingers fine, and then closed her eyes. Haru's resolve was easy enough for her to figure out; she wanted to protect Tsuna, she wanted to not be left out of everything, she wanted to _help_. She wanted to be in on everything, right up there with the boys. Despite the likelihood of getting hurt, it'd be such a thrill to fight alongside the boys like Chrome sometimes got to (when her remarkably similar-looking male counterpart wasn't doing it for her). Even though it was dangerous… wasn't she Miura "Dangerous" Haru? …well, technically no. But she _could_ be, couldn't she? She said the word enough times a day that she really ought to be by now-

In focusing on her resolve, Haru closed her eyes tightly, so she didn't notice until Kyoko gasped that one of the rings had lit up. She opened her eyes to a jittering green light that seemed to be emitting intermittent sparks. It made a noise like fizzy water in a small, echoing space. Mesmerized by the citrus-green glow, it was a few moments before Haru gently slipped off the other two rings, and examined the one remaining as she let the flame die down.

"So I'm Lightning, huh…" she wondered aloud.

Kyoko and Haru stared at the rings on each of their fingers.

"There's sort of a problem with all this, Kyoko-chan…" Haru mentioned nervously. "We, um, we don't know how to fight. Really. At all." Kyoko blinked slowly, as if just realizing this fact. "I mean, I do gymnastics, but that's really about it. You don't, well…" Haru fiddled awkwardly with her new ring. "Well, you don't do any sports or anything. Or martial arts. You aren't even in any clubs, as far as you've told me… how on earth are we supposed to fight?"

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><p>So.<p>

Just thought I ought to say what this was inspired by... This fic is the direct product of three things: Tatta Latta (the Reborn girls' image song), the movie Sucker Punch!, and Monstrous Regiment (a Discworld novel). If you don't know what these are, that's okay. Look 'em up if y'wanna, but you really don't need to. The fic makes perfect sense without 'em.

The plot will probably kick in somewhere around the end of chapter two, in which... well, we'll get to that when we get to it, yeah? Yeah. Okay.

Lemme know what you think. As far as the girls' flames go (and not just Kyoko's and Haru's), I'm doing a lot of speculating based on genetics and personalities. And as far as pairings go, HOLY FUCK, Forte's about to have to write het. It's sorta story-necessary (but 6918 is going to happen regardless. No questions). So Kyoko/Tsuna will occur, and Ryohei/Hana is basically kinda canon, so that's gonna be in there. I-Pin and Lambo (TYL versions, thank you ten-year bazooka) are too cute not to include. Haru? Haru. I don't know what to do with Haru. She's either going to be fighting for Yamamoto or Gokudera (probably Gokudera, 'cos then I can put Chrome with Yamamoto). Tell me whatcha think of all that, if you'd like to.

This will be posting erratically, but I'll try to do it at least once a month or so, if not more. Depends how inspired I get. Reviews are fed into my quantum transducer and used to generate plot.


	2. Bianchi Comes Off as Mysoginistic

Wow, so people actually like this! I'm happy about that; I like it too. It's fun to write. Also, the overarching plot kicks in at the end of this chapter, so I'm really excited about that!

I'm probably gonna post a drawing of all the girls being epic on Deviantart at some point, so when I do, I'll let you know how to get to it.

Enjoy!

* * *

><p>Chapter 2; in which Bianchi Comes Off as Misogynistic and Mukuro Accidentally Gets Shot At.<p>

The next morning, Kyoko and Haru showed up together at Tsuna's house for the second time in as many days. Tsuna's mom answered the door and informed them with an overblown tone of regret in her voice that Tsuna had already left with Gokudera, Yamamoto and Reborn. Kyoko figured they were doing something related to the mafia, and sighed inwardly when the thought occurred to her that they never told any of the girls _anything_. She should've considered it a blessing that she knew as much as she did to begin with; Tsuna's mother didn't even appear to be aware that her son was a mafia boss-to-be!

"Oh, we aren't here to see Tsuna-kun today," Kyoko informed Sawada Nana. "We actually had a question or two for Bianchi-san, if she's in at the moment."

"Oh, of course!" Nana smiled brightly. "Come on in and have a seat. I'll go find her for you." The girls followed Nana inside and took seats at the kitchen table. Lambo and I-Pin ran around under the table, playing some kind of game. Kyoko raised an eyebrow as I-Pin climbed up onto her lap and fingered the rings in her pocket.

Haru noticed this and her eyes widened in shock. "Oh, no way. No way in the world, Kyoko-chan. Lambo-chan fighting for the boys is enough; I'm not putting another child in danger like that," Haru hissed. "I won't let you drag I-Pin into this… what exactly _is_ our idea?"

At this point, Bianchi appeared in the kitchen with raised eyebrows and a smile. "What brings you girls over when the boys aren't in?" she asked. "It's unusual for you to be here when they aren't."

"Actually, Bianchi-san," Kyoko explained, "we have a favor to ask of you. Um… we want you to help us with something."

"And that something would be…?" Bianchi asked, sitting down across the table from the girls.

Kyoko and Haru exchanged glances briefly, nodded, and then held out their hands with the Sun and Lightning rings on them. Bianchi gave them a confused look, and then her eyes widened in shock as both girls lit flames above their respective rings. "Okay," Bianchi conceded, doing her best to retain an air of calmness in the face of something very startling. One of the many rules of the universe at large is that nobody is good at remaining calm in the face of the truly and absolutely unexpected (the only exception to this rule so far was Chrome Dokuro, who, after spending so much time sharing a mind with Rokudo Mukuro, is no longer surprised by _anything_). And so upon witnessing two assumedly normal girls wielding powers beyond their means, Bianchi was understandably not remaining perfectly calm. "How did you figure out how- where did you even get- what- I… explain from the beginning, please."

"Well," Kyoko said simply, "My brother can, so I'd wondered for a while if I could use flame powers too. And so I, ah, borrowed one of his and tried it. And then I wanted to see if Haru-chan could too, and so I, well, we borrowed some more rings from the boys…"

"Without, well, telling them…" Haru added under her breath. Bianchi didn't seem to notice.

"And… that's really about it," Kyoko ended. "We came here to ask if you could… er, train us in combat?"

Bianchi stared. She stared some more. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

"Is this about protecting the boys in return for them protecting you?" she asked finally. Both girls gasped.

"Hahi! How did you know?" Haru squealed.

"Women's intuition," Bianchi insisted. "Besides, every girl wants to thank the boys in their life for something at some point. You two just have a lot more to thank them for than the average girl does is all, so I can see why you'd want to go further out of the way than the average girl usually has to in order to thank them."

"No, that-" Haru attempted to interrupt, but Bianchi kept talking.

"I can see that you girls would want to do something nice for the boys, but don't you think making them something nice to eat would be a better way for the two of you to go about it?"

"But, Bianchi-san, _you_ fight sometimes too! Why shouldn't we?"

"I've been training for years, that's why," Bianchi informed them. "Whereas you two have not been. I'm a trained assassin; It's just what I do. The boys are trained Mafiosi now. Leave them to their work, and focus on what's important in your own lives."

"But what's important in our lives is _them_!" Kyoko insisted. "Look, Bianchi-san, we'll find a way to fight for Tsuna-kun and Gokudera-kun and the others no matter what you say, okay? We just wanted to come to you about it first because we thought you'd understand!"

"Understand that you'd like to get yourselves killed for the sake of people who want nothing more than your safety?" Bianchi countered.

"No!" Kyoko contradicted. "We thought you'd understand that we want to _help_ them! Be their backup, save them when they need to be saved instead of them saving us all the time! We'd be like… backup Guardians."

"_Guardians?_" Bianchi laughed. "That's actually an entertaining prospect. If you were capable of it, that is. You two are energetic and confident and driven, I'll give you that. But you've seen the fights the boys get into against rival famigilas; you were in the future with them when they fought the Millefiore, weren't you? You saw the level you'd need to be at to be a Guardian, and you girls, I'm sorry to say, just aren't there."

"That's why we came _here_!" Haru said. "We wanted you to train us!"

Bianchi sighed and showed the girls an apologetic face. "I would really like to help you two," she insisted. "And I understand your feelings. But I think the biggest help I can give you right now is advice, and that advice is to leave the battles to those who know how to fight them."

"So you're telling us to stay in the kitchen, basically," Kyoko reasoned harshly, her voice taking on a dark edge. "You're telling us that the fighting is men's work, and all we're cut out for is the cooking and the cleaning and housekeeping and taking care of the kids, is that it?"

"No, Kyoko, that isn't-"

"You fight, Chrome-chan fights, Lal-san fought!" Kyoko reminded them both. "There were girls in the Millefiore, weren't there? One of the Funeral Wreaths was that little girl with blue hair! _Two_ of Kozato Enma-kun's Guardians were girls; Tsuna-kun told me! It's not our job to stay inside where it's safe when the people we care about are out there risking our lives!"

"Kyoko-chan…" Haru whispered, startled by her friend's sudden outburst.

"I'm sorry for getting mad, Bianchi-san," Kyoko said, suddenly softer. "But I really thought you'd see it from our side is all." She stood up and pushed her chair back in to the table, letting I-Pin down off her lap as she did. "Come on, Haru-chan. We'll find someone else to be our girls' team Storm Guardian." Haru stood quickly and followed after Kyoko, who was already halfway down the hall.

"Wait, Kyoko, Haru!" Bianchi called. "That wasn't what I meant at all!"

But by that point, the two of them were gone.

"All I wanted," Bianchi muttered angrily to herself, "was for you to understand how much your safety means to those boys. Sometimes, no matter how much we want to fight for them, the best we can do is just let them go out and fight for us…" she paused. "And get themselves hurt. Or even killed. Because it's just them, and their stupid adrenaline and testosterone and recklessness. And there isn't a voice of reason there to tell them when to run."

Bianchi stood up slowly, pushed in hers and Haru's chairs, and took a deep breath.

_Without a woman or two out there on the battlefield with them,_ she thought morbidly, _the boys aren't going to last much longer. It's a miracle their impulsive teenage brains and their obnoxious habit of thinking with their fists haven't gotten them killed already!_

_...Shit._

_..._

Kyoko and Haru stared up at the decrepit Kokuyo Land building where Chrome took up residence with mixed feelings. However, it was Haru who first voiced what both of them were thinking: "Geez, this place is an utter _dump_!"

It was true, and had been since the building had been abandoned however many years ago it was now. The windows were cracked and the letters reading _Kokuyo Health Land_ were falling off the side of the building. Trees and various other bits of foliage were growing up into the ruins of the building.

"How does Chrome-chan live here?" Kyoko wondered aloud.

"And not just her," Haru added. "Those two friends of hers that go to Kokuyo Middle. And Tsuna-san's other Mist Guardian guy… Um, Mukuro-kun is his name, isn't it?"

"Yeah," Kyoko affirmed. "I heard Tsuna-kun and the others talking about it one day, but I still don't really understand his situation. Something about making a deal to keep him out of prison."

"Hahi! He was in prison?" Haru gasped. "What for?"

"I don't really think I want to know," Kyoko mumbled to herself. "It might make me not want to go in here if he's here too." She shuddered and gestured at the decrepit building. "Come on, we came here for a reason, right?"

The pair of them made their way carefully into the building, picking their way through broken glass and cement as best they could. After having to brush numerous cobwebs out of her face, Haru saw it fit to pick up a broken pipe that'd been lying around to push them out of the way with instead. The thin layer of dust coating everything where Chrome and her companions didn't typically walk made them both sneeze.

Inside the building, the staircases were mostly destroyed or were giving way and didn't appear safe to walk on, but eventually the girls located one that seemed mostly intact. They tiptoed carefully up it in search of Chrome, and as they rounded the corner at the top, Kyoko smiled. Sitting on the sofa in the large room at the top of the stairs was someone with a very familiar hairstyle and green jacket.

"Chrome-chan!" she called, jogging the rest of the way up the staircase with Haru and her pipe close behind.

Chrome turned around, but when she did, Kyoko was startled to see that _it wasn't Chrome_. The tall boy called Rokudo Mukuro was there instead, and Kyoko felt herself blush in embarrassment at her mistake.

Mukuro stared blankly at the pair of them, frozen across the room from him. He stood up and picked his trident up off the floor next to him and pointed it at Kyoko and Haru. "Who are you?" he asked calmly. "I don't remember inviting you in."

"Um," Kyoko mumbled. "We came to visit Chrome-chan…"

"She didn't inform me of this. I don't believe you," Mukuro countered quickly, stepping forward toward the girls. "Perhaps you're lying."

"No!" Haru shook her head. "We're friends of Chrome-chan's! Just ask Ryohei; he's Kyoko-chan's brother! Isn't he in Tsuna-san's mafia with you?"

Mukuro's eerie mismatched eyes narrowed as he came to a stop hardly ten feet from the girls. "Don't lump me in with your screwed-up mafia friends," he hissed. "I refuse to be a part of that world."

With that, Mukuro, obviously angered by Haru associating him with the mafia, let slip a disturbing smirk. "You don't appear strong enough to fight back; I won't even need illusions to bring you down." He suddenly swung his trident forward, straight at Haru.

"Hahi!"

There was a resonating clang of metal on metal. Kyoko opened her eyes (she hadn't realized she'd shut them) to see Haru holding back Mukuro's trident with the busted piece of pipe she'd picked up earlier.

"Oya…" Mukuro mumbled. "Maybe there's a little bit of fight in you after all." He shrugged, shoving forward with enough force to nearly buckle Haru's knees. "No matter; even in a purely physical battle, the strength I possess is more than enough to counter your impulsive defense."

"Like hell!" Haru snapped angrily. "I'll show you that I'm not so pathetic as you'd think!" The ring on her left hand flared to life with Lightning flames, and Kyoko watched Mukuro's eyes widen in surprise. Both Kyoko and Mukuro – and Haru herself – were startled, however, when Haru managed to draw the flames all the way along the length of the pipe in her hands. The entire thing fizzed with green Lightning flames, and suddenly Mukuro pulled back and stepped away from Haru.

"Lightning flames," he muttered. "With their hardening attribute, it'd be more difficult for me to break that makeshift weapon of yours, girl."

Haru blinked in dull confusion for a moment before nodding unsurely and saying, "Yeah. Yeah, right! Exactly! That's _definitely_ what I was planning there."

"You're a friend of Tsunayoshi's?" Mukuro asked. Haru and Kyoko both nodded. "Hmm," he thought aloud. "Maybe it'd be worth it to possess you after all…"

"Huh?" Both girls looked at each other, and then back at Mukuro, who was again smirking in a very disturbing manner-

"Mukuro-sama!"

"Chrome-chan!" Kyoko and Haru cheered as the female Mist Guardian ran into the room.

"Mukuro-sama, please leave these two alone," Chrome mumbled awkwardly, stopping in between Mukuro and the girls. "They're my friends. Don't hurt them, please. They're not involved, you know."

Kyoko suppressed a glare.

Mukuro sighed theatrically. "If you say so, my dear Chrome… I'm going to go bother Ken; you can come find me if you need me," he informed her, turning to leave the room through the door where Chrome had entered from. "Oh," he added, turning back to Haru, "you can turn your flames off now. Otherwise you'll use up all your energy and pass out, and then you'll have to be here longer while we wait for you to wake up. Or else – and god forbid this occur – I'll have to carry you all the way to your bus stop."

Haru blinked slowly and looked at the pipe in her hands. It was still glittering with green flames. She sighed deeply and watched the glittering green fade away before letting the pipe drop out of her hands. It clattered loudly on the ground in the following silence.

"Haru-san…" Chrome said softly, "how did you do that?"

The girls sat Chrome down on the couch previously occupied by Mukuro and Kyoko ran through the same explanation she'd given Bianchi, with a few small differences here and there because the words came easier around a peer than an elder.

"You want to protect Boss and the others?" Chrome asked at the end.

"Yes," Kyoko confirmed. "We'd be like… backup Guardians. Doesn't it bother you that us girls are always the ones being saved?"

Chrome looked around vaguely for a moment. "It does… sort of get to me sometimes that Mukuro-sama is always having to save me and I can never return the favor for him…"

"Exactly! That's why we're doing this!" Haru smiled. Chrome, at least, understood where they were coming from.

"So what are we?" Chrome asked softly. Chrome somehow managed to do everything softly. "Are we like a second group of Guardians? Like the Vongola Guardians, only all girls instead of all boys?"

"Pretty much," Kyoko nodded. "Would you be willing to be a part of that with us?"

Chrome glanced up at the door where Mukuro had exited from, and then back at Kyoko and Haru. The Mist flame flared to life over one of the few rings adorning her hands. "I'll do it," she whispered, a faint smile gracing her lips. _I'll do it for Mukuro-sama, for Boss, for all of them._

_..._

With the determination to become strong on their own, Kyoko, Chrome and Haru took the bus back into downtown Namimori ("Mukuro-sama, I'll be back in time for dinner, okay!") and found themselves one of _those_ stores. It was one of those shady stores that seems to lurk down every back alleyway and deals all sorts of objects and weapons of questionable legality. But they had knives and they had guns and they didn't care if they sold to minors, just so long as they made money and didn't get caught.

"Chrome-chan, how did you _find_ this place?" Haru asked nervously.

"I was on a walk one day," she murmured, holding the door open for the other two, "and I saw Boss's Cloud guy go down this alley, and wondered why. So I used my illusions to vanish and I followed him. But at that time the store creeped me out." Chrome looked around at the various things in the padlocked-shut display cases and shuddered. "Never mind," she added, "it still creeps me out."

"Duly noted, me too," Kyoko replied quietly. She took a deep breath and strode bravely up to the counter, where she fixed the cashier with the most juvenile delinquent-esque expression she could and said confidently, "What's the best kind of handgun you can get me?"

The cashier sighed. "You're the second Namimori brat I've seen in this store," he muttered, noting her school uniform. "You guys got a gang goin' or something?"

"Who was the other one?" Kyoko asked, despite already knowing.

"Kid with a bird on his head an' a superiority complex the size of Asia," the cashier replied. "Comes in here to get his tonfas fixed when he dents 'em. Happens a lot. Must get in a lotta fights."

"That's Hibari-san for you," Haru murmured under her breath.

"Well, missy," the cashier sighed, "I usually don't sell that kinda gun to middle schoolers, since those ones tend to be the kind of idiots who'd take 'em to school and say to their friends, _hey, lookit, I got me a gun_ and then forget the safety's off and blow a hole in somethin' or someone they didn't wanna blow a hole in."

"Eek," Kyoko whispered to herself.

"But," the cashier said, "I can tell you got a good head on yer shoulders, so if you can pay, it's yours. Didja want one fer each of you?" he asked, glancing at the girls. "What, you got a girl gang goin' on or something?"

"Oh, no," Kyoko replied. "Just for me and-"

"Just for her," Haru cut her off. "I want a switchblade!"

"Switchblade, huh?" the cashier scratched his chin. "Gotcha. One high-caliber handgun an' one switchblade." He turned to Chrome. "You want anythin' too, missy?" She shook her head. "Okay. Hang on a tick." He vanished into the back room, presumably to retrieve the gun for Kyoko. The three girls stared around awkwardly at each other, trying not to make eye contact, but trying harder not to look at the plethora of illegal devices in the grimy display cases.

The cashier returned with a box that had several smaller boxes stacked on top of it. "This is yer gun," he said, pointing to the big one. "An' these are some extra boxes o' bullets fer ya, since it's yer first one, innit? It's yer first time with a gun, I can tell." He bent down and unlocked the display case to retrieve a switchblade with a dark green handle. "An' here's your knife, missy."

They totaled up the entire cost of everything (it was less than Kyoko expected, but still expensive) and paid it without question simply for the sake of getting the heck out of the store as fast as possible.

As they stepped out the door with the shady-looking plastic bag full of equally shady contents, Kyoko nearly fainted in shock to see Hibari Kyouya reaching for the door handle, about to enter the store himself. In his other hand was a seriously dented tonfa that looked to have blood splatters on it.

"It really isn't my place to ask, Sasagawa," he said, "But as a student of Namimori, you're under my jurisdiction and therefore I find it must be my place to tell you that this really isn't the kind of place for a girl like yourself-" he froze mid-sentence at the sight of Chrome.

"Hello," she said, barely audible.

"Hn," Hibari replied. "Rokudo Mukuro isn't here, is he?"

"Not right now. Unless he followed me."

"Tell him the next time I see him, he's mine. Got it? I'm going to bite him to death." Chrome nodded awkwardly, and the girls scurried out of the dark alley as Hibari stalked into the store behind them.

"By the way," he called, just as they were about to leave the whole shady affair behind them, "Sasagawa-san. You'd do well to give your brother back that ring you're wearing." And with that he vanished through the door of the weapons shop without another word.

The trio of girls looked at each other in shock for a single moment, and then as one unit broke into a run.

...

They reasoned that practicing to fire a gun correctly was not something to be done within the Namimori city limits, so the girls retreated back out to Kokuyo land for the purpose of Kyoko learning to defend herself. Chrome set up a handful of empty cans for Kyoko to fire at, and then she and Haru hid behind a broken cement wall while Kyoko attempted to aim successfully.

The first few times she was completely off the mark; one bullet went off into the bushes, another went through one of the only remaining unbroken windows in the building where Chrome and Mukuro lived, and the third ricocheted off the wall where the cans were balanced and nearly hit Haru and Chrome.

"This is harder than it looks!" Kyoko complained, repositioning the handgun. "Maybe I should've asked that guy for one with one of those targeting things on it."

"Kyoko, you won't have time to sight down the barrel of a gun and make a perfect shot in the heat of battle," Haru reminded her. "You have to learn to do it the _dangerous_ way!"

"The dangerous way is gonna get someone killed if I miss again," Kyoko muttered to herself. Yet she sighed loudly and repositioned the gun.

She fired. She _mis_fired. The topmost can rattled a bit, but it'd only been barely grazed. Kyoko watched glumly as the bullet rocketed off and winced at the distant cracking noise it made as it connected with the concrete.

"Hey! Watch where you're firing that, please," called a semi-familiar voice.

"Mukuro-sama!" Chrome squealed, and then Haru clapped a hand over her mouth.

"Wait." Mukuro spoke up again. "Why is someone firing a gun in my territory? Chrome? Hey, who's there?"

Haru beckoned Kyoko over and she scampered over the broken bits of cement and roots growing up through the paved plaza to hide behind the wall where Chrome and Haru had been watching her from.

"Don't you think," she whispered slowly, "that this is something the boys shouldn't find out about?" She released Chrome, who conceded not to call out for Mukuro again. "I mean, it's sorta like Bianchi-san said; if they're fighting to protect us, the last thing they'll wanna know is that we're putting ourselves in the line of fire, right?"

"You've got a point," Kyoko agreed. "I don't think we should tell Tsuna-kun and the others about this. They'd just freak out and they wouldn't focus on what they need to do, and they'd get themselves hurt because of us."

"Wait," Chrome whispered. "I can't tell Mukuro-sama that I want to protect him?"

"Not exactly," Kyoko replied. "Your case is a little different, because technically you're Tsuna-kun's Guardian too, but you can't tell Mukuro-san that we're making a whole team of girl Guardians. Even though he seems… well, a bit distant from the other guys, he still might tell Tsuna-kun about it if he knew."

"I have to keep a secret from Mukuro-sama?" she mumbled meekly. "I've never done that before…"

"What, do you have a crush on him or something?" Haru asked bluntly. Chrome turned an interesting shade of pink and shook her head violently back and forth.

"No! No, no, that… Mukuro-sama and I are… that would be like _incest_!"she squealed, doing her best to keep her voice down so Mukuro wouldn't hear and come over. "Mukuro-sama and I are… a little too close for that. We sort of share a mind, after all. He knows what I think about, and I know what he thinks about."

"Hahi! That's so weird!" Haru grinned. "So do you know who he likes then?"

Chrome turned an even darker shade of pink and mumbled, "That's Mukuro-sama's secret to share if he wants to share it."

"But then…" Kyoko noticed, "then he knows who _you_ like, doesn't he?" Chrome nodded. "So you _do_ like someone?"

"That's a secret for _me_ to share if I want to," Chrome replied with a small smile. "Let's find somewhere else for you to practice, okay? If we don't want to get noticed, we can't be here with Mukuro-sama."

...

Irie Shouichi had a terrible headache, but that was to be expected. He always came out of discussing space-time with Byakuran thinking that he needed a drink, a nap, and an Advil. It wasn't that it was particularly difficult stuff for Shouichi to understand, but the entire concept of Byakuran having access to his knowledge from parallel universes that really messed with his mind. It wasn't that it was hard to comprehend; it was simply the thought of infinite Byakurans to cope with was such a daunting thing, and it preyed on his mind whenever the topic of Byakuran's parallel knowledge was brought up. One crazy boss was plenty enough, in Shouichi's opinion.

This time, he'd borrowed Uni's power of future sight and managed to combine it with his ability to access his parallel selves' knowledge, and seen something that in his mind was horrible: the imminent destruction of the Millefiore at the hands of the Vongola Guardians from ten years in the past.

And so, upon discussing this at length with Shouichi, he'd decided that instead of their original plan to bring the Vongola Guardians into the future to take their rings, wouldn't it be better to execute an ambush by sending the entire Millefiore into the past? Take out the Vongola brats before they knew what'd hit them, and get the Arcobaleno while they were at it.

Byakuran thought it was brilliant.

Shouichi thought it was going to be an absolute pain in the ass to reverse-engineer the ten-year bazooka to send them ten years backward instead of ten years forward.

The only real problem with this was going to be sending them all back in time to the correct point. Ideally, they'd be sent back in time to before the younger Guardians would've gone to the future and acquired epic powers the likes of which apparently rivaled the Millefiore. The only problem with that was that time travel, while incredibly precise, had an inexplicable ability to be somewhat inaccurate. There _is_ a difference between precision and accuracy. Accuracy is William Tell hitting the apple on his son's head. Precision is the sixteen other arrows that all ended up jammed into the exact same spot on his son's forehead in an attempt to hit the apple.

If Shouichi could pull it off correctly, bad shit would go down. Byakuran, while having a perfectly good understanding of dimensionality and space, couldn't seem to comprehend Shouichi's explanation of a time paradox. Killing the Vongola in the past would mean they wouldn't exist in the future, which would mean the Millefiore wouldn't ever have decided to attack them in the future and thus wouldn't go back in time to kill them and about that point is when things start to dissolve and even Shouichi goes cross-eyed thinking about it.

He shooed away the pair of Cervello women that constantly tracked his every move, tossed his coat on the chair in his lab, and called up Spanner on Melone Base's paging system.

"Get up here; we have some unfortunate work to do."

* * *

><p>You know who you need to be most afraid of in a fight? The weapons technician. Why? Because they know how to work every single superweapon on their side of the fight, including all the untested prototypes of freaky badass things that nobody's even seen yet.<p>

...that tangent up there has nothing to do with the story. I just thought it was cool.

Gah, Bianchi ended up sounding like a real bitch, didn't she... I wanted her to come off as kind of motherly and wanting to keep the girls safe, but it just ended up sounding like she was sticking them into the typical shonen manga token chick roles after all. I can see why Kyoko got mad.

I was gonna write that bit with Shou-chan in the future tense, because it's happening in the future instead of the present, but that got too difficult. So just assume that, unless otherwise stated, Shouichi's narratives take place in the future and everyone else's take place in the current time (well, a little after current time. After the Shimon arc).

Reviews will be fed into my quantum transducer, where they will be converted into plot.


	3. Shouichi Really Fucks Things Up

This took much longer than it should've. I'd like to say it's because I've been busy (and I have), but in reality there were just a couple scenes in here that were really difficult to write. Namely, the one involving the Varia. And actually, any of Shouichi's narratives, simply because of the whole stupid timey-wimey stuff going on.

EDIT: That art piece I said I was going to do for this fic. It's finished. Just delete the spaces in the link to go to it. http:/ neon-hikari. deviantart .com /art/ Tatta-Latta-Meets-Suckerpunch- 216477364

Ahhh, you don't wanna listen to me rant. Enjoy chapter 3.

* * *

><p>Chapter 3; in which Squalo is Outsmarted by a Little Girl and Shouichi Really Fucks Things Up.<p>

It was decided that since Chrome could actually fight and Haru at least did gymnastics, the real problem was Kyoko learning to fire a gun correctly. Without the ability to do _some_ kind of damage at least, she'd be killed in seconds in the event of a real fight.

The main problem with this, as it turned out, wasn't that Kyoko couldn't aim; it was that she _wouldn't_.

"I've seen too many action movies with my brother," she admitted to Haru and Chrome as they sat down for snack at a café. "Whenever someone gets shot in one of those, I can't watch. It freaks me out and there's so much blood and they almost always die. I don't want to kill people."

"Kyoko, this entire thing was _your_ idea!" Haru sighed.

"Also," Chrome added softly, "it's not like an enemy is going to let you live if they have the chance to do otherwise."

"I know," Kyoko mumbled dejectedly. "It's just that… well, bullets are scary. Imagining a bit of burning metal going through my body just scares the heck out of me. I mean, if I could fire something _else_, that'd be different. I don't know _what_ else I could fire, but… bullets just seem too… you know, right? They seem so permanent."

The trio lapsed into silence and watched the people go by on the streets of Namimori. It was a Sunday, so everyone was out in the sun and enjoying the remainder of the weekend. Kyoko sighed inwardly and wished she could still be a part of that normal life, living in blissful ignorance of the fact that her own classmates and friends were in the mafia, and danger could come bursting out of any dark alley, from around any corner, even appearing randomly on the streets in a cloud of pink smoke, transported from another time period.

"There's a way," Chrome said suddenly.

"A way to what?" Kyoko and Haru asked.

"To fire something other than a bullet. You could fire Dying Will flames from your gun," she explained quietly. "Boss fought that Varia boss guy who did that."

"Varia…" Haru mused. "Aren't they that assassin group that works for Tsuna-san's mafia?" Chrome nodded. "Hahi… real assassins… I don't know, Kyoko-chan. If legit assassin guys use that kind of power, maybe it's worth a shot! It could be really powerful if you could get it to work!"

"_If_ I could get it to work," she emphasized.

"You could always call and ask them to teach you," Chrome mumbled, taking a bite of her cake.

Kyoko and Haru stared at her for a moment. Eventually, it was the ever-energetic Haru who broke the silence with: "You think they'd be in the phone book?"

"I'm not about to just casually telephone the mafia, Haru-chan," Kyoko interrupted. "They wouldn't be in the phone book; we'd probably have to steal their number from Reborn-chan or something!"

"Or you could ask Boss's blond friend," Chrome mentioned quietly, continuing to eat her cake.

"Blond friend?" Kyoko and Haru asked.

"He's visiting," Chrome explained vaguely. "You met the future one of him. Blond. Wears a green jacket with fuzz around the collar. He had that horse Box Weapon."

"Oh, _him!_" Haru exclaimed. "I remember that guy. What was his name?"

"It was something not-Japanese, wasn't it? He was from Italy."

"Right."

"He's at Boss's house for the week if you want to talk to him," Chrome said.

"We could go do that," Haru agreed. "Come in, pretending we want to see Tsuna-san or something, or to play with Lambo-chan and I-Pin-chan, and then one of us can chat this guy up and the other will steal his address book and get the phone number for… what's this group called again?"

"Varia," Chrome mumbled through her cake.

"Right. Phone number for the Varia," Haru finished. "And you can call and ask how to do it!"

The trio looked at each other for a moment. Kyoko's face was blank. Haru was grinning. Chrome was chewing the last bite of her food. She swallowed, took a quick drink of water, and then burst into silent laughter.

"Right, you do that," she giggled. "It sounds easier than it'll be. I promised Mukuro-sama I'd be home for dinner, so I should head back and catch the bus."

"Oh, okay," Kyoko nodded. "Can we see you tomorrow? I mean, we have school for one more week, but we can see you after school hours, maybe."

"I guess," she mumbled. "Keep practicing with the gun, Kyoko-san. And Haru-san, how are you going to fight-"

"Don't worry!" Haru insisted. "I've got things figured out."

"We'll see you later, Chrome!" Kyoko called as the younger girl left. "Say hi to Mukuro-san for us, okay?" Chrome nodded and turned the corner, vanishing from sight.

"She's totally got a thing for him," Haru said, smiling surely.

"I don't think so, actually," Kyoko countered. "I think she might like one of the other Kokuyo Middle boys that she hangs out with."

"Hahi! Really? Which one? The tall skinny one with the hat or the spiky-haired mean one?"

Kyoko giggled. "You know how when kids are little, boys will pull the hair of the girls they like just to get their attention?"

"Yeah…"

"It's the same with Chrome-chan and the boy with the spiky hair. Except instead of pulling her hair, he just antagonizes her all the time. But since I think she likes him back, I think she can tell that he doesn't mean it."

"Woah… you've really thought that through, huh…"

"I guess."

The girls headed off in the direction of Tsuna's house, talking about all manner of random things ("What do you think Hibari-san will say about seeing us at that store?"/ "Do you think Bianchi-san will still be mad at us for this morning?"/ "Did you know Hana has a boyfriend? I wonder who it is…"). The conversation eventually reached a point where both girls were wondering which of the Vongola boys they were fighting for. Not just on the whole, as a thank-you, but which boy they each had in mind.

"Because I _know_ you have one, Kyoko-chan. This isn't just about thanking Tsuna-san and protecting your brother."

"Haru-chan, what are you talking about?"

"Which of them is it?"

"Huh?"

"Which one do you like?" Haru grinned. "Of the Vongola boys, that is."

"_Oh_."

"Is it Tsuna-san?" Haru asked, a silly grin on her face. "Because you can have him. If I'm going to marry a Mafioso, it's going to be one who's strong and cool and _dangerous_, and Tsuna-san's a great friend, but he just doesn't fit the dangerous bit, you know?"

"Haru-chan…"

"You _do_ like him, don't you?" Kyoko turned a violent shade of red and looked away, stuffing her hands in her jacket pockets. "Hahi! I knew it! You totally like him!"

"Haru-chan, his house is right here. Let's not talk about this here, okay?"

Haru nodded, gave Kyoko a thumbs-up, and promptly rang the doorbell.

...

Hibari was in an absolutely _hideous_ mood. Someone had been in his bedroom recently without his permission. He hadn't noticed, and whoever it was had left no clues behind as to who they were, and on top of that, they'd _stolen_ from him.

Whoever they were, they either didn't know who he was, or they had a serious death wish.

Hibari doubted it was the former, because if they hadn't known who he was, they wouldn't have stolen what they did: one of his Cloud rings. True, it was a nondescript, vaguely feminine one that he really wasn't going to miss that much. But it was simply the fact that some foolish herbivore had thought they had the balls to steal from him that really got him _mad_.

So far, the only person he could see doing it was Mukuro, simply for the purpose of pissing him off. Mukuro seemed to enjoy doing that, and under all the circumstances, Hibari couldn't fathom why. Mukuro had much better people to bother and much better reasons to bother someone else instead. Most people would expect that bothering Hibari Kyouya would lead to a very painful and extended trip to the hospital.

Aside from that, Mukuro wouldn't have stolen something that Hibari might not have noticed; he'd have stolen something that would've _really_ annoyed Hibari. Like his tonfas. Or his armband. Or-

Well, anyway, it probably wasn't Mukuro.

Hibari thought back to the girl that'd rung his doorbell the day before. Sasagawa Ryohei's little sister, if he remembered correctly. Some first name that sounded similar to his, but feminine in nature. She'd been wearing one of her brother's Sun rings on her right hand. Hibari hadn't thought anything of it at the time, but… then he'd seen her and that girl from Midori Junior High and Dokuro coming out of the shady weapons dealership downtown, and he'd decided that maybe it wasn't a coincidence after all. Maybe the foolish girl who'd run across pretty jewelry in her brother's room and decided to try it on wasn't so foolish after all. Maybe something was going on.

Hibari growled and sat down at his desk, fiddling with the remaining rings that hadn't been stolen. Had Sasagawa's sister stolen from him, perhaps? He hadn't seen a Cloud ring on her finger earlier that day, nor on Dokuro's hands (only Mist rings there), or the other girl… what was her name. Miura something. She'd been wearing a ring too, but it was green-

-which was lightning. Dokuro was with them, and it couldn't possibly be a coincidence. Sasagawa's sister and Miura and Dokuro. Rings. Weapon shop (how had they even _found_ that place was beyond him).

Those girls were up to something. And as one of them was a student of Namimori Middle, it was technically up to Hibari to make sure that Sasagawa was at least safe.

Be as that may, he wasn't about to put in any house calls to the Sasagawa family. The second Ryohei heard it was him on the phone, he'd assume Hibari had rethought his offer of joining the boxing club and he'd come after him relentlessly again about it. He didn't know Miura's phone number. He supposed he could get it from Sawada, but that would entail either calling the pathetic herbivore or else actually being in his presence and speaking to him, and Hibari wasn't in the mood for that.

The only remaining option that presented itself would be to inform Rokudo Mukuro and have him pester Dokuro about it.

Hibari played with the pros and cons of this third option for a moment. On the up side, he would find out what the girls were up to and potentially keep a Namimori student from getting herself in danger (the paperwork if she died would be such a pain in the ass, after all). On the down side, he'd have to ask Mukuro for a favor, and that would just be humiliating. Up side, Mukuro would owe him if he managed to keep Chrome safe. Down side, asking Mukuro for a favor would mean that Mukuro could in return ask Hibari for one, and in all probability… well, Hibari could already imagine Mukuro's trademark sadistic smirk creeping onto his face.

But he had to know if those girls had managed to break into his house and steal from him. That, above all else, was priority.

With that as his resolve (Hibari had yet to work out that this kind of resolve worked in the place of irritation to light his Cloud flames), Hibari sighed exasperatedly and dialed Mukuro's phone number.

Ring. Ring. Ring.

"Hello, this is Rokudo Mukuro's cell phone. I'm not here right now, so leave a message, and if I deem you worthy of my very valuable time, I _just_ might decide it's beneficial to call you back. If it's Tsunayoshi-kun on the other line, don't leave a message unless you're ready to submit and let me take control of your mind. Ciao!"

_Beep_.

Hibari sighed again. "It's Hibari. I have a job for you to do for me. Dokuro, Sasagawa's sister, and Sawada's annoying female friend from Midori Middle are up to something weird. If you could ask Dokuro if the three of them happen to be in possession of one of my Cloud rings, I'd appreciate it very much." And then, with a sigh and the notion that this would be a severe headache for him later, Hibari added, "Because I know you'll need motivation to do anything at all for anyone, I'll just say this: I don't like owing people things, so I'll make it up to you. Find out if they have one of my rings, and if they do, find out _why_."

Hibari hung up defiantly without so much as a goodbye, and hoped Mukuro would assist him in this venture without much complaint.

...

After brief introductions had occurred, Kyoko and Haru got talking to Dino while Tsuna attempted to finish his homework. Bianchi conspicuously avoided the girls, deigning to stay in the backyard with Lambo, I-Pin and Fuuta. Dino, however, was eager to make friends with the girls. As a matter of fact, he seemed to be eager to do literally everything, despite the fact that he seemed to trip over everything possible to trip over and even some things _im_possible to trip over.

Eventually, after much tripping and much giggling, the trio made it to the kitchen table, where Haru and Dino took it upon themselves to discuss the various merits and failings of all the stuff in Tsuna's fridge and what they could eat for snack. Kyoko excused herself to the bathroom.

Again, she didn't go to the bathroom. Instead, she snuck out into the front hallway and yanked Dino's fuzzy jacket down off the coat hooks. She dug through his pockets until she found his cell phone, which she turned on and then covered up so the startup noises wouldn't be overheard. Once it was on, Kyoko pulled out her own phone and opened up both phones' contact list. Dino's was harder to find, since everything in his phone was written in Italian, but eventually she located it and began scrolling through the names.

_Let's see… "Varia" starts with a V, so I'll start from the bottom and scroll up,_ she thought, proceeding to do just that.

And there it was; close to the bottom, in the midst of a bunch of Italian names like _Vincento_ and other things Kyoko couldn't pronounce were the words_ Varia Independent Assassination Squad (home number)_. Kyoko poked at her own phone and pressed the button to create a new contact, after which she copied in the number from Dino's phone. She finished, stuck her phone back in her pocket, turned Dino's off, and returned it to his jacket before returning to the kitchen.

"You're back!" Dino smiled.

"I'm back," Kyoko replied, feeling terrible about all the lies, but knowing that if they told the truth, it'd only be so much worse.

...

"I'll see you tomorrow, Kyoko-chan," Haru called as she jogged off down the street toward her house. Kyoko smiled at her as she went, and as she turned the other direction, texted her brother that she'd be home late that night. She walked on her own to the park and smiled at the sun setting over the flowers she'd accidentally grown the day before, but smiled bigger at the lack of people; all the children had gone home for dinner by that point.

She sat down on a park bench, took a deep breath, and flipped her phone open. She bit her lip, dialed the number for the Varia, and held the phone up to her ear. The phone on the other end rang three times before Kyoko was greeted with a voice so loud she had to tear the phone away from her ear.

"_VOOOOOOI!_ Who the fuck is it?" shouted the very irritable, _very_ loud voice on the other side.

Kyoko cringed and steeled her nerves. "My name is Sasagawa Kyoko and I need to speak to the Varia's boss, please."

"Who the hell are you? You're either friends with that Cavallone bastard or part of the Vongola if you have this number. Who the fuck do you think you are?"

"Um-"

"Are you working for that Sawada brat?"

"No," Kyoko said, surprised by her forwardness. "He doesn't know I'm making this call."

"Oh?" Something in the tone of the otherwise very angry voice caught Kyoko's attention. These Varia guys weren't big fans of Tsuna's, were they? They didn't like him much. He'd defeated them, after all, hadn't he? Stopped them from being the Vongola Guardians or something. Tsuna had explained it all very quickly.

"Yeah, I'm kinda going behind his back to talk to you," Kyoko informed the angry person on the other line, despite the fact that it wasn't exactly true. "He wouldn't be happy if he knew I was contacting the Varia."

"Why the hell not?"

Kyoko grinned to herself. _Well,_ she thought_, I've lied to the people I care about, and I've lied to friends I've just made. I shouldn't have any qualms at all about lying to someone I'll likely never speak to again._

"Sawada Tsunayoshi doesn't want me to be able to fight. He thinks I'll interfere with the Vongola famiglia," she explained off the top of her head. "That's why I wanted to talk to your boss; the only weapon I've been able to teach myself to use well in secret is a gun, and I wanted to know if it was possible for him to teach me how to fire Dying Will flames from it."

There was a pause on the other end.

"And you want this power so you can take down Sawada, is that it?" asked the voice hopefully.

"You got it," Kyoko lied.

"Kay, hang on," the voice conceded, and then shouted into the background on his end of the line, "VOOOOOOI, shitty boss! There's someone on the phone for you that wants to kill Sawada Tsunayoshi!"

Kyoko resisted the urge to giggle uncontrollably at the fact that she'd just lied to and manipulated a skilled Mafioso.

"He's on his way," announced the voice. "Voi, Sasagawa, right? Where've I heard that name before? Isn't that one of Sawada's Guardians' last names?"

Kyoko bit her lip. "Is it?" she faked. "It must be a coincidence. It's not that uncommon of a last name in Japan."

"Oh. Huh." There was a long and awkward pause as Kyoko tried to decide if it was worth making small talk with the very angry man on the other end of the phone line. She didn't have to though, because a few seconds later the man announced, "Here's the boss. Watch yourself, brat."

There was a shuffling sound of a phone being passed between two people, and then a deep and intimidating voice asked, "Well? What're you wasting my time over, trash?"

Kyoko exhaled nervously. "I'm Sasagawa Kyoko and I need to learn how to fire Dying Will flames from a gun in order to assist in my venture of becoming strong enough to defeat Sawada Tsunayoshi."

The bigger the lie, the harder they would fall for it, Kyoko figured. Besides, the angry guy had seemed to enjoy this idea. His boss must hate Tsuna even more than the subordinates, huh?

"You want to kill that little brat?"

"I want to be stronger than him. He's trying to keep me weak and on the sidelines." This lie was beginning to get a little bit out of control… "He knows I can be stronger than him, and so he's taken away all my opportunities to get stronger. He doesn't know I'm making this call." Which was true. Tsuna had no idea that Kyoko was on the phone with the Varia. He'd probably have a heart attack if he did.

"Hn." There was a long silence on the other end of the phone. "Stupid trash, you really couldn't figure it out for yourself? You must not be _that_ capable of being strong."

"Sawada's stopped me from figuring it out!" Kyoko lied. "Every time I try to teach myself, he or his Guardians get in the way! You were my last resort; make this worth _my_ time, so I'm not wasting yours."

"Hn." And then, "You gotta put your ring on your trigger finger, first. That makes it stronger." Kyoko's eyes widened. She'd done it. "After that, it's the bullets."

"Huh?"

"The bullets, trash. You gotta use Dying Will bullets."

"Oh, okay. I think I can manage that."

"That's it."

"That's it? That's all there is to it?"

"I'm hanging up now, bitch."

And so he did.

...

"Ah, Chrome. You're back." Mukuro gave Chrome a smile as she appeared shyly from around the corner. "Just in time for dinner, like you said." Chrome nodded and sat down at the coffee table where they always ate. Ken and Chikusa were notably absent, however, and Chrome asked about that fact almost immediately.

"Where are Ken and Chikusa?" she mumbled softly.

"They ate already," Mukuro explained. He'd insisted that they eat before Chrome returned, because he needed to have a talk with her in private.

According to Hibari, she and Tsunayoshi's female friends were up to something not-so-innocent. He hadn't left details, but apparently one of his rings was missing and he'd seen these girls wearing rings of their own that looked suspiciously like ones that belonged, respectively, to the Sun and Lightning Guardians.

Mukuro had his own theories about what was going on, but he couldn't deny that something was indeed happening under their noses, because those same two girls that Hibari had mentioned had shown up looking for Chrome and the one hyper girl had revealed herself to possess lightning flames.

It wasn't entirely his place to bother Chrome about everything she did, but, well… Hibari had asked, and he'd promised to make up for it, so Mukuro wasn't about to turn down the offer.

"So where did you go today, Chrome? You were gone for a long time."

Chrome fiddled with the hems of her shirt sleeves. "Um, I went shopping in Namimori with Kyoko-san and Haru-san."

"You didn't buy anything," Mukuro noted.

"Didn't see anything I wanted to buy."

"What were you guys talking about earlier before you left? It looked important," Mukuro mused. Chrome flinched.

"You were listening?"

"Just watching."

"Oh."

"Was it important? Something I shouldn't hear? You can tell me anything, Chrome," Mukuro insisted, flashing her a smile that would've looked innocent on anyone else.

"Oh," Chrome mumbled, taking a bite of tonight's dinner (mochi and cheesy potato chips, because that's what Ken and Chikusa had decided on). "Girl stuff," she replied vaguely.

"What kind of girl stuff?"

"_Girl_ girl stuff."

"Like boys?"

"Girlier than that." Chrome blushed. Mukuro stopped asking. They ate in silence (save for the crunch of potato chips) for a while before either of them spoke again.

"So I got a call from Kyouya-kun today," Mukuro mentioned offhandedly. "I was surprised; he never calls me. Unfortunately, I was busy at the time and he had to leave a message. Do you know what he called about, Chrome?"

"No, Mukuro-sama. I can imagine it involved your death," she answered, taking an educated guess while she was at it.

"In fact it did not," Mukuro laughed. "One of his Cloud rings is missing." Chrome flinched. "He thinks someone may have stolen it." Mukuro raised an eyebrow speculatively. Chrome tried desperately to become even smaller than she already was. "You wouldn't know anything about this, would you?"

"Why would I have Hibari-san's ring?" Chrome mumbled awkwardly.

Mukuro paused. "I never accused you of taking it," he said slowly. Chrome's eye widened. "You didn't do it, did you?"

"Of course not, Mukuro-sama!"

"Do you know who did?"

"No!"

"Are you lying to me, Chrome?"

"I couldn't possibly lie to you, Mukuro-sama!" she gasped, shaking her head violently.

"You're being rather dramatic. Are you sure you aren't trying to hide something from me? You and those other two girls? I didn't know either of them were capable of using flames." Chrome bit her lip, possibly remembering that Mukuro had seen the one girl use Lightning flames earlier too.

"Mukuro-sama…"

"Chrome, please just answer me this: You're not doing anything reckless, right?"

"Mukuro-sama, I'm a Vongola Guardian too, aren't I?" she asked.

"Of course you are. We share that title."

"Reckless is part of the job," she mumbled shyly. Mukuro laughed.

"Indeed it is. Except this time, by 'reckless' I mean something that Tsunayoshi-kun or I would not approve of you doing. And please, answer me honestly."

Chrome didn't answer at all.

"Chrome, answer me."

"No, Mukuro-sama," she said. "I haven't done anything."

Mukuro hoped that the silent, lingering _'yet_' at the end of Chrome's sentence was only his imagination.

...

At around one in the morning, when Kyoko climbed out the window of her bedroom with a flashlight and a cotton sack and ran off down the streets of Namimori, she began to wonder if she was getting herself in over her head. All the lying and stealing was eventually going to come back and get her in the form of some really bad karma, she knew. _But it's necessary in order to protect the boys!_ she convinced herself.

Sawada Tsunayoshi's house was dark at this time of night; everyone was asleep. Kyoko had memorized which room belonged to the newly-appointed Vongola boss, and as she crept through the front gate, closing it softly behind her, she stared up at Tsuna's window and deeply regretted what she was about to have to do. Kyoko stuck the flashlight into the waistband of her pants and held the cotton sack in her teeth, and as carefully and quietly as she could, started climbing up the bushes along the side of the house. It was nearly summer, and Kyoko was dead thankful that Tsuna slept with the window open, because it saved her the trouble of trying to pick the lock open from the outside.

She slipped silently into his room and tiptoed across the floor, doing her best to make sure not to wake him, but even more so not to wake _Reborn._ His wrath would be far worse than Tsuna's mere surprise.

Kyoko slid Tsuna's closet open as inaudibly as she could and pulled out a cardboard box. This one had words inked on it reading _crappy test scores_. She moved this box to the side and pulled out another, this one reading_ clothes that don't fit anymore_. She placed this one gently on top of the first one and slid out the third one. This one read_ extra dw bullets_, and Kyoko smiled to herself and thanked the person (his name escaped her at the moment) who'd given Tsuna the Dying Will pills to use instead, because now there were all these leftover bullets and Kyoko could take as many as she needed from the nearly-full box.

Kyoko opened up the cotton sack that she'd brought and started carefully sliding bullets into it, placing them in the bag one by one so they wouldn't clatter together and wake anyone up. She didn't dare take the entire box, because that would be easily noticeable, and despite the fact that Tsuna wouldn't dare suspect her, she wasn't taking her chances.

Kyoko replaced the boxes back exactly where they'd been in Tsuna's closet and slid the door shut again. She tied the sack of bullets shut and held onto it tightly as she balanced herself on the window, swung down and hung by one arm, and then let herself drop lightly to the grass below.

She picked herself up, shouldered the sack, and ran home through the streets of Namimori, feeling terribly guilty, terribly nervous, and at the same time… so, _so thrilled_.

...

Irie Shouichi was mildly displeased to see his bedroom from ten years earlier. Mostly because it was a complete wreck, and also he'd sent Spanner over first, so Spanner had already seen the mess.

However, he couldn't be entirely unhappy, because scientific progress had gone boink and landed him exactly where he wanted to be: ten years in the past. Or so.

_Great_, he thought. _Now I have to figure out how to sabotage Byakuran's plans before he gets sent back here to carry them out._

There wasn't a ton he could do about it, when death threats as creative as Byakuran's were being hurled in his direction (the most recent one had involved something along the lines of sandpapering Shouichi's skin off), and so Shouichi, under duress, had invented the ten-year-backwards bazooka.

Shouichi had sent himself back in time nine years and eight months (he thought. He wasn't positive he'd set the time coordinates correctly, but then again, time coordinates were _hard_ to set correctly). In his rightful time period, it was a month before the Vongola Guardians from the past would show up and obliterate their boss.

Over the next seventy-two hours, the Cervello would send the entire militia assigned to Melone base back in time (and if Shouichi's calculations were right, they could be able to send Melone base itself, too). In a week, once the Vongola Guardians were good and captured, they'd send Byakuran and he'd see to killing the lot of them himself. He'd insisted on killing them himself.

Shouichi sighed resignedly, stood up, and said, "Spanner, help me clean my room, or I'll never get anything done-"

At about that point in time, Shouichi realized that Spanner had switched places with his past self. At the moment, he was somewhere in Britain in the middle of the night, and very, very confused.

Shouichi sighed and made his way over to his younger self's desk, where he sat down. Underneath it was the box from the Bovino famiglia that he'd been sent all those years ago, the very reason he was able to stand where and when he currently was.

_The younger me must be so confused right now, being stuck inside that big white device…_

Shouichi turned on his younger self's computer and logged on.

And fell off his chair.

According to the calendar on his desktop, he'd arrived six months later than he'd calculated he ought to have. The Vongola had already been to the future. Been to _Shouichi's_ future. Not the future that Shouichi had come from, but even further in the future than that.

And horrific realization was just beginning to dawn on Shouichi: all his time travel devices were in the future. And he himself, the only one who knew how to work them, was in the past. He couldn't get back to the future and fix things even if he wanted to. The entire Millefiore was going to be sent to the wrong point in time.

Shouichi must've been swearing angrily to himself, because just then he heard a voice call down the hall from his sister's room, "Go to sleep, you little geek! Quit making so much noise!"

In the best imitation of his fifteen-year-old self, Shouichi replied, "Sorry, sis! I was just-"

"I don't care _what_ you're doing! Go the hell to sleep!"

"Yes, ma'am."

Shouichi flopped over on his younger self's bed and wondered briefly if he should leave before his mother came in the next morning to wake him up, only to find that he'd grown ten years and several inches overnight.

* * *

><p>Pfff ahaha Shouichi. I don't know why I don't love his character more; he's really awesome.<p>

Ughhh I feel like Mukuro and Xanxus were both kinda OOC here _ Xanxus more so, though. He's the reason this chapter took so long to write, and he was only in one scene *dies*

Euh. Review if you like. Still trying to figure out if I'm gonna include 8086 or 5986 (if I do 5986, then I can do 8096 too). Feedback on that might be helpful.


	4. A Lot of Bad Shit Goes Down

Ahahahaha this chapter. This chapter has some really weird tones to it. The plot kicks in, which means suspense. And there's comedy while the girls tease each other about who they like (I died a little inside with each sentence I wrote in those parts). There's a bit of angst in the middle because certain characters are hard to write off as being anything other than bitches. And... well. I liked writing it.

Have fun reading it.

* * *

><p>Chapter 4; in which A Lot of Bad Shit Goes Down While The Girls Discuss Their Respective Love Lives<p>

Kyoko and Haru skipped school the next day. It was difficult for Kyoko to pull off, because she walked to school with her brother every morning and was terrible at faking sick, so she had to get all dressed up in her uniform and put on her backpack and actually go to school, where she immediately made for the bathroom and hid there until the morning bells rang and she could sneak back out while everyone was in class. She ran home, changed out of her uniform, and went to meet Haru and Chrome at the park.

"What did you want to show us, Kyoko-chan?" Haru asked as the three of them sat down in a circle on the grass. Kyoko smiled, pulling the gun out of her bag, and then she opened up the cotton sack from the previous night.

"Dying Will bullets," she said simply, grinning. "That's how I can fire flames."

Chrome and Haru gaped.

"The Varia listened to you?" Chrome said finally.

"Sorta," Kyoko admitted. "I kinda had to lie to them."

"Ah." Chrome looked guiltily down. "I think Mukuro-sama and Hibari-san know what we're up to," she mumbled nervously. "You guys don't happen to have one of Hibari-san's Cloud rings, do you?"

"Ah." Kyoko and Haru looked at each other, and Kyoko silently reached into her pocket and pulled out the Rain, Storm, Sky and Cloud rings that they hadn't gotten around to finding people for.

"You do…" Chrome moaned. "Mukuro-sama was really worked up about it last night. Hibari-san actually _called_ him about it… He kept asking me questions and telling me not to lie to him… I don't like lying to him…" She sniffled, as if about to cry, and Kyoko and Haru impulsively pulled her into a hug.

"It's for his own good," Haru insisted. "We're doing this to protect them, aren't we? Mukuro-kun too. A little lie or two is nothing if you can save his life later, right?"

"Mmhm…" Chrome mumbled, wiping her eyes. "Kyoko-san, can you actually fire flames from that?"

"Haven't tried yet, but it can't be that hard, can it?"

"No," Chrome conceded. "Haru-san, what about you?"

"Well!" Haru sat back on the grass and smirked. "Remember when we were in the future?"

"How could we forget?" Kyoko muttered.

"Well, Tsuna-san and Yamamoto-san were talking about their training one day, and I remembered they were talking about some series of videos that Yamamoto-san watched to help make him a better sword fighter! So I went over to Yamamoto-san's because they have a sushi restaurant, right? Right. And I got talking to him about sword fighting and I mentioned the videos because I said they sounded interesting, and he's like, _you wanna borrow 'em_? And I said of course I would, and he lent them to me! So now I have those sword training videos and I'll use 'em to become a really good swordfighter!"

"Wow," Kyoko agreed. "You thought that out well. Except," she paused awkwardly, "do you own a sword?"

"Well, I have that switchblade I bought," Haru bubbled. "But if that's not long enough, I have a wooden cosplay sword from my samurai costume, and didn't Mukuro-kun say that Lightning flames have hardening powers? If I use the flames with the wooden sword, I can make it as hard as if it were metal, right?"

Chrome and Kyoko nodded.

"And I'm doing fine with how I can fight already," Chrome added. "So what we need to focus on now is finding girls for the Cloud, Rain and Storm rings."

"Or maybe you don't," said a voice. All three girls immediately stood up to see Bianchi approaching.

"Bianchi-san…" Haru muttered.

"Are you going to try and stop us?" Kyoko asked as Bianchi came to a stop in front of them. Bianchi said nothing and simply reached for the rings in Kyoko's hand. She pulled back, but not before Bianchi could grab one of them.

"I'll only need this one anyway," Bianchi said, slipping the stolen Storm ring onto her finger. "Now you only have to find two other girls."

...

It happened fast. Very fast. One second Fuuta was playing with Lambo and I-Pin, and then suddenly Lambo wasn't there anymore. Fuuta, confused, looked around briefly to see if Lambo had hidden somewhere, like in a bush or under the porch, but the cow-boy was nowhere to be found.

I-Pin yammered something unintelligible in Chinese and pointed at the roof. Fuuta glanced upwards to see what she was pointing at, but all he saw was a quick glimpse of white disappearing over the rooftop, and nothing else. _Probably a bird,_ thought Fuuta.

"Come on, I-Pin, maybe he went inside," Fuuta suggested warily. "Maybe he went to get a snack or something. I-Pin insisted on her Chinese garbling, and Fuuta apologized profusely for not understanding her.

If he could, he'd have known that along with the figure in white, Lambo had disappeared over the rooftop as well.

...

With Bianchi's extra assistance, Kyoko learned very quickly how to fire a gun correctly. She practiced with normal bullets on a target, out in the middle of the woods where nobody would hear or see them, and with enough assistance, she was able to improve her aim significantly.

Haru, on the other hand, was actually proving to be a problem. She'd watched hardly five minutes of the Sword Emperor videos before loudly proclaiming that they weren't teaching her anything and that the main character was a "total meanie with a foul mouth," and insisted that Chrome show her how to hold a weapon first. Haru didn't care that there was a significant difference between the physics involved in wielding a trident versus wielding a wooden sword; Chrome could give her the basics and she could improvise from there.

"Haru-san, you have to use both hands," Chrome insisted. "You can't have a switchblade in one hand and a sword in the other. It doesn't work that way."

"But what if I get attacked at close range and I have to stab someone?" Haru complained, crossing her arms indignantly as Chrome eased the switchblade out of her hands.

"Then you hit them with the hilt of the sword, I don't know," Chrome sighed. "Look, that's expert stuff, using only one hand. I think. Duel-wielding isn't easy."

"Hibari-san does it," Haru reminded her. "With his tonfas. He has two of 'em."

"Yes, but he's… _special_, Haru-san."

"I guess you're right…"

Chrome leaned her trident up against a tree and helped Haru position her hands on the hilt. "Like this, see?" she instructed. "That way you have leverage."

"Leverage, right."

"Can you get the flames to go along it like you did with that metal pipe the other day?" she asked. Haru tilted her head to the side in thought.

"Maybe," she said, nodding. "I was sorta startled and acting on impulse when I did that. Maybe if you swing your trident at me and startle me again it'll work!"

"I couldn't swing a weapon at you," Chrome shook her head.

"Do it!" Haru insisted vigorously.

"Uhhh…" Chrome nervously picked up her trident. "If we must…"

She swung it up over her head and spun it around quickly before dragging it back down through the air, straight at Haru. Haru only had a split second to figure out what to do with herself before suddenly, without any prior thought or decision, the wooden sword was out in front of her defensively, Lightning flames dancing along it and increasing its hardness to block Chrome's trident.

"Hahi! I did it!" Haru beamed. Chrome drew back her trident with a faint smile on her lips.

"So you did." She sat down on a fallen log.

"You're a lot of help, Chrome-chan," Haru told her. "I wish I knew someone who could show me how to use a sword right. Besides Yamamoto-san; he can't know about this, after all."

Chrome nodded in agreement. Haru sat down next to her with a grin and threw an arm around her shoulders.

"Haru-san?"

"So," Haru teased. "If it's not Mukuro-kun, who're you into?"

"I don't think this is the time for that," Chrome mumbled, blushing. "Why are you even asking?"

"Well, I figure this Mukuro guy's saved your life a ton of times, and he's the _reason_ you're alive," Haru explained. "There's gotta be a reason you don't like him back."

"Like him _back_?" Chrome squeaked. "Mukuro-sama doesn't like me that way, Haru-san."

"How do you know?"

"Again, mind-sharing," Chrome reasoned. "Whether I liked to or not, I got to see who Mukuro-sama was fantasizing about every time he borrowed my body," she complained, crossing her arms. "And I don't think I was supposed to see _that_."

"Hahi! Was he thinking inappropriate things?" Haru squealed, giggling.

"He's a teenage boy," Chrome muttered, and that was the only explanation really necessary.

...

"We're gonna go get somethin' for lunch, pyon!" Ken called over his shoulder as he dragged Chikusa from the Kokuyo health land building. Mukuro nodded to them as they left and flopped over on the sofa. Chrome was avoiding him quite a bit these past couple of days, wasn't she? It made him sad, but more than that it made him curious. He'd been completely shocked by it (despite not showing this), but he was pretty darn positive that Chrome had lied to him. She was up to something at the very least.

Nodding to himself, he pulled out his phone and called Hibari back to let him know about his progress on finding out what the girls were up to.

Hibari picked up after the first ring, and Mukuro smirked to himself. "Kyouya-kun, hi," he sang.

"What do you want?" Hibari deadpanned. "I'm in school."

"Like you actually attend classes," Mukuro muttered. "Just thought I ought to let you know that whatever those girls are up to, Chrome is keeping secrets from me." He paused. "I'm not sure if you realize how shocking that is."

"Suitably shocking," Hibari admitted. Somewhere far off (Mukuro couldn't tell if it was on Hibari's end of the phone line or his), there was a clattering sound.

"Did you hear that just now?" Mukuro asked nonchalantly, standing up and retrieving his trident.

"Hear what?"

"Never mind. Anyway, Chrome's actually not here right now. I think she's with the other two again. I could go try to find them, if you'd like-"

"Hang on. Someone's knocking on my door," Hibari interrupted. Closer by, somewhere on the floor below Mukuro, there was the sound of footsteps.

"That's funny. I think I might have a visitor too. You want me to call back later?" Mukuro edged closer to the staircase, aiming to surprise whoever was invading his territory in a rather sadistic manner. Hibari didn't answer for a moment. "Kyouya-kun?"

"Don't hang up," he commanded, and then there was a wrenching sound on the other end of the line, like hinges being torn off a door. This was followed by a crash and the sound of glass breaking.

"Kyouya-kun," Mukuro called, "what's going on over there?"

"The same thing that's going on over here!" shouted a voice from _far_ too close behind Mukuro (how had they gotten behind him? All the other staircases were out), and suddenly there was a hand over his mouth – was some fool trying to _chloroform_ him? The nerve of some people – and his hands were being yanked behind his back and the world was going black-

...

"Wait," Haru began over lunch again. "So if you could see who Mukuro-kun was fantasizing about when you shared bodies, then who _does_ he like? I can't imagine him flirting, you know…"

"Can we stop talking about this?" Chrome mumbled awkwardly.

"How did you even _start_ talking about this?" Bianchi sighed into her coffee. She wondered if the girls ate at this same café every day (the food was good enough for it), and if so, why the waitresses hadn't reported them for bizarreness yet.

"Wait, now I'm curious," Kyoko interrupted. "Keep talking."

"That's Mukuro-sama's business," Chrome complained, taking a large bite of crepe so as to not be able to reply for a while.

"Well, I'll guess then!" Haru cheered. She crossed her arms and screed up her eyes and thought. "Except…" she mumbled, "I don't know any of the girls that Mukuro-kun knows, except for you, Chrome-chan."

"That isn't a problem," Chrome said, swallowing her crepe and blushing lightly.

"Huh?" Kyoko and Haru pouted. "Why isn't that a problem?" Kyoko continued.

Chrome blushed even deeper. "You guys know the person Mukuro-sama likes despite that."

Bianchi sighed and tried desperately to ignore the conversation and convince herself she didn't care. It seemed like all girls ever thought about these days was shopping and boys.

_But I guess it's good that they're thinking of the boys,_ she reminded herself. _Their love for the boys is what made them decide to protect them in the first place._

_..._

The boxing club room was deserted at lunch, which was somewhat of a comfort for Ryohei because then if he broke something, nobody was around to accuse him of doing it and he could just leave and blame it on someone else. Yet despite this, as he put in some extra practice before club time that afternoon, he felt like the room was a little bit less empty than usual.

If Ryohei was a little bit more perceptive, he would've noticed the soldiers in white and black uniforms before they burst out of cabinets and knocked him out.

...

"Haru-san, who do _you_ like?" Chrome asked on the way back to their makeshift training grounds outside the city. It was a semi-futile attempt to deflect the attention away from herself and the questions after questions about Mukuro-sama's love life, which Chrome couldn't fathom why these girls cared about at all.

"Oh, I thought that was sorta obvious," Haru replied awkwardly.

"No, I'm the one that's obvious," Kyoko added.

"Well, _yeah,_ you are," Haru agreed. Kyoko huffed and crossed her arms shyly.

"It's the boss, isn't it," Chrome affirmed. Kyoko nodded shyly.

"I thought I was just as obvious as Kyoko-chan, though…" Haru mumbled. "You mean you can't guess?"

"No," replied Chrome, Kyoko and Bianchi.

"Well!" Haru cheered. "I can use it as a bargaining chip! I'll tell you if Chrome-chan tells me!"

Damn.

"Hey," Chrome started off again, deflecting the conversation once more. "I think I know someone who can help train us more."

"Really?" Bianchi grinned. "That takes some of the pressure off of me then."

"But I don't know if she'll agree. She doesn't like me," Chrome mumbled.

"Is she one of Mukuro-kun's friends?" Haru asked. Chrome nodded.

Bianchi's eyes narrowed. "Please tell me it's not that nasty clarinet girl." Chrome sighed, gave Bianchi an apologetic look, and nodded meekly. "Seriously?" Chrome nodded again. "Do you think she'll even _want_ to help?" she asked hopefully.

"Well, no," Chrome admitted. Truth be told, the prospect of _speaking_ to M.M., much less asking the other girl for help, was incredibly daunting. The last conversation Chrome had held with her, despite it being in the future, had been full of insults and threats and "Stay away from my Mukuro"s and Chrome was not at all in the mood to try and remind her that Mukuro-sama wasn't going to get with M.M. any more than he was going to get with Chrome herself. Most conversations with M.M. went sort of that way, except usually Chrome kept her droll, dark and deceitful opinions to herself and let M.M. do the talking, because if Chrome spoke up at all, it wouldn't come out the witty, sharp way she wanted; it would be shy, because Chrome lacked the confidence to stand up to M.M. at all. In all probability, she'd get laughed at by the older girl and shooed out of the room with insults and rude words.

"It's worth a try either way," Kyoko insisted. "We need all the help we can get."

_I'll need help too,_ Chrome groaned inwardly, _if I really need to face that woman._

_..._

At the end of the school day, Yamamoto waved goodbye to Gokudera and Tsuna as they went home and headed off toward the locker rooms to change for baseball practice. As he walked back down the hallways of the school, taking a shortcut indoors to the locker room, he swore he saw figures in all black lurking behind the corners and doorways. He figured they were the disciplinary committee, because didn't they wear all black like that? Maybe they were trying to catch some students vandalizing the school. Or they were playing a game of some kind.

Yamamoto had a very brief image fly through his head of Hibari and the disciplinary committee playing tag on campus after school hours. Hibari was it, and the disciplinary committee was running from him because he was tagging people with his tonfas-

Something must've been left lying in the hallway, because Yamamoto tripped, and as he went down, he felt a sharp blow to the back of his head-

...

"You want me to _what_?"

The hotel room that M.M. seemed to be perpetually taking up residence in after Mukuro's untimely return to prison smelled sickly of perfume, and Chrome thought the scent matched M.M.'s tone of voice perfectly, because to her it smelled of rotted lemons.

"Help us train to protect the Vongola Guardians," Kyoko clarified. Chrome did her best to shrink back and blend in with the unfortunately gaudy wallpaper.

"Like _hell_ I would help you with that," M.M. sneered. "I hate you Vongola brats. You're the ones who got Mukuro thrown back in prison!"

Haru started saying something along the lines of _Yeah, but he's not in prison anymore_ and Chrome stepped on her toes to shut her up.

"I mean, seriously, you little brat," M.M. complained, turning her attention to Chrome despite the fact that she was currently hiding behind the other three girls. "What are you trying to do with this whole protecting thing? Are you trying to suck up to _my_ Mukuro? Is that it?"

Under her breath, Haru muttered, "I really hope this isn't the person that Mukuro-kun likes…"

"You want to _protect him?_" M.M. laughed.

_Yes, _Chrome thought bitterly.

"You? You're so pathetic, always calling for him to come and save you. You couldn't protect anyone-" _What do you know, you horrible woman?_ "-much less someone as great as Mukuro." _Like _you_ were so strong, getting beaten by Bianchi-san in mere seconds._ "You're just a whining, crying little brat-" _Like you're any better, you insulting bitch._ "-who can't do anything on her own. I mean, you have to rely on _Ken_ and _Chikusa_, of all people-" _And I can't stand up to Ken either, can I? The day I face the pair of you down is the day when you'll see just how strong I really am, M.M.!_ "-and that just goes to show how much of a failure at life you really are. Without Mukuro, you'd be dead-" _Why do you think I want to thank him, you awful, horrible_-

"Stop talking to Chrome-chan that way!" Kyoko interrupted suddenly.

"Who do you think you are?" Haru spat. "You can't just insult her like that for no reason; she didn't do anything to you! She asked you for _help_!"

"Who would want to help a pathetic brat like her?" M.M. sneered, leaning on the arm of her sofa and examining her nails as if she had nothing better to do.

"We would," Haru and Kyoko snapped.

"And we're leaving," Bianchi added, ushering the girls out the door, Chrome first.

"Told you it wasn't worth it," Chrome mumbled quietly as they left. Bianchi made sure to slam the door loudly.

_The day I stand up to you, M.M…. the day you see how strong I really am…_

_I wish that day would hurry up and get here._

_..._

"Quiet at school today, huh?" Gokudera mused as he and Tsuna walked home from school. The streets of Namimori, despite being typically peaceful, seemed equally quiet as well. Normally Gokudera would've felt comfortable with the lull in activity, assured that nothing was coming after the Boss, but today it was downright eerie.

"It _was_ kinda quiet," Tsuna agreed, and then added, "Kinda weird too. The disciplinary committee was freaking out all afternoon because someone had wrecked the prefects' office and they couldn't find Hibari-san."

"He probably went after whatever poor bastard decided to screw it up," Gokudera shrugged. "Not that I care."

"And I haven't seen Ryohei-oniisan since lunch," Tsuna continued. "It's way quieter without him. Come to think of it, I didn't see Kyoko-chan all day. You don't think she's sick, do you?"

"Who knows?" Gokudera resisted saying he didn't care about that either, but he knew Tsuna would pout and he hated making the Boss upset. However, having something – anything at all – to talk about made Gokudera feel a little bit more at ease; the eerie lull was staring to get to him.

"Do you think I should go visit Kyoko-chan? Take her some notes from class, maybe?" Tsuna wondered aloud.

The lull was _really_ starting to bother him. He even thought he was seeing figures in the shadows.

"Gokudera-kun," Tsuna said suddenly.

"Yes, jyuudaime?" Gokudera snapped to attention.

"Does it seem unnaturally quiet to you?" he asked. "Like, we're getting close to my house. Usually I can hear Lambo from this distance."

"That's true…" Gokudera muttered. "W-well, it's probably nothing to worry about! Maybe he's just taking a nap or something."

"Lambo? _Nap_? Don't I wish…" Tsuna laughed. "He's probably just got his mouth full or something. You're right, it's probably nothing to worry about."

And then someone tazered Gokudera in the side of the neck. As he dropped to the ground, numb and dizzy and watching someone in black do the same to Tsuna, he thought morbidly to himself, _isn't there _always_ something to worry about…_

_..._

"I'm home!" Kyoko called, slipping her shoes off at the door as she came inside. "Sorry it's so late; I was doing homework with Hana." The lies were coming easier now, and Kyoko almost didn't feel the pang of guilt in not telling her parents where she'd been and that she hadn't gone to school. In reality, they'd missed the bus back from M.M.'s apartment in Kokuyo and she and Haru and Bianchi had ended up having to walk back to Namimori.

"Welcome home," called Kyoko's mother from the kitchen. "Dinner's on the table."

"I'll be right there!"

Kyoko ran up to her room and stashed the gun under her mattress with the bag full of Dying Will bullets. She skipped down the hall to the bathroom and washed her hands, and then came back downstairs and sat herself down at the table for dinner.

"How was your day?" Kyoko's father asked from across the table.

"Fine," Kyoko replied vaguely. It was a legitimate answer; she'd been saying her days had gone fine since fifth grade and it was still working. "Onii-chan's not home yet?" she asked, glancing around in search of her brother.

"No," her mother replied, bringing over a plate of vegetables from the stove. "I guess practice ran late today, huh?"

"I guess so," Kyoko replied, taking a bite of food.

"That's a pretty ring," her father noted, pointing to Kyoko's hand. Kyoko nearly choked on her food. Had she seriously forgotten to take off the Sun ring before coming down for dinner? It was _lucky_ her brother wasn't home yet, or he'd have noticed and blown more than a few fuses in the process. "Where'd you get it?"

"Oh, Haru-chan showed me this really cute little accessory store downtown near the cake shop the other day," Kyoko fibbed. There was no remorse in this one at all; she was protecting herself this time. "They had so much cute jewelry there; I had to buy it!"

"It suits you," her mother told her. Kyoko smiled.

_It certainly does_.

The rest of dinner passed with occasional observations about the weather and random chitchat between the adults about how work had gone that day, and Kyoko allowed herself to zone out while she finished eating.

"I'm going to go up to my room now," she announced after she'd finished. "I didn't finish my homework with Hana, and it's due tomorrow, so I need to get it through with."

"Good luck on it," her father called after her as she scampered up the stairs.

The first thing she did was to take off the ring and slip it under her mattress with the gun. The last thing she needed was her brother to see her wearing it. Hibari-san noticing it had been bad enough (not to mention entirely surprising), and apparently now Mukuro-kun knew too… It was just lucky for Kyoko that the pair of them were the least connected to Tsuna, otherwise he'd already know and he'd have had a conniption by now.

Kyoko collapsed on her bed. What homework could she possibly do, having not gone to school?

Luckily she didn't need to think about it for long, because her phone rang hardly seconds later.

"Hello?" she answered it, picking it up after one ring.

"Kyoko-san…"

"Chrome-chan? What's the matter? You sound upset." Kyoko sat up on her bed and crossed her legs nervously.

"I c-came home…" Chrome sobbed quietly, doing her best to speak, "and K-Ken and Chikusa were unconscious… a-a-and M-Mukuro-sama is m-missing…"

"What?"

"And I can't g-get in contact with him either…" she continued.

"Hey, calm down," Kyoko soothed. "It's okay. You're strong. Whatever happened, we can help fix it. We'll help find Mukuro-kun. In the meantime, do you want to come over to my house? I think there's a bus this late…"

"Can I really?" Chrome hiccupped.

"Always!" Kyoko insisted, nodding vigorously despite the fact that Chrome couldn't see her on the other side of the phone.

"I'll come over then…" Chrome said, voice wavering dangerously. "Do you think Ken and Chikusa will be mad?"

"Leave them a note," Kyoko conceded. "I'll be waiting for you."

"'Kay." Chrome hung up unceremoniously. Kyoko narrowed her eyes and bit her lip. Hopefully whatever had gone on wasn't too bad, but… the other Kokuyo boys had been knocked out? And Mukuro was missing…

Kyoko made to text this information to Haru and Bianchi, but just then her phone rang again. Thinking it was Chrome calling back to tell her more information, she picked up almost immediately.  
>"What's happened?" she asked.<p>

"Kyoko," said Bianchi, startling her. Bianchi?

"Bianchi-san, what's wrong?"

"Tsuna never came home from school, his mother says. And Lambo vanished sometime after I left this morning."

"_What?_"

"I know, it's kind of scary, but Tsuna's a strong boy; he's probably just busy with something minor. I'd say it was some training of Reborn's he's doing, but Reborn's on an emergency trip back to Italy to meet with the ninth-"

"No, Bianchi-san, that's not… Mukuro's missing too," she stammered.

"Come again?"

"I just got a call from Chrome-chan; Mukuro's gone missing. And those other two Kokuyo boys they live with were unconscious when she got home."

"You're kidding."

"You might want to call Gokudera-kun, since he's your brother. See if he's okay," Kyoko suggested, trying to keep her voice even. "Chrome-chan's coming over here. I'm gonna text Haru-chan and then find out why my brother's not home from practice yet…"

But even as she said it she knew he wasn't at practice. He was wherever the others were. When Bianchi called her brother, Gokudera wasn't going to answer the phone. Ryohei wouldn't either. Kyoko betted that Yamamoto and Hibari had vanished as well.

"I'll find out if the other boys are okay," Bianchi conceded. "Sit tight until we have more information. Call Chrome, tell her what's going on, and tell her to be extremely careful. She's one of Tsuna's official Guardians too, after all."

"Got it."

They hung up simultaneously. Kyoko texted Haru frantically with all the info, then sent a message to Chrome relaying what Bianchi had just told her.

Then, just to be extra sure, she dialed her brother's cell phone number.

Ring.

Ring.

Ring.

_"This is Sasagawa Ryohei! I'm not at the phone right now because I'm boxing TO THE EXTREME! Or I forgot to turn my phone on today! Leave me an extreme message at the beep!_

Beep.

Kyoko hung up the phone, hand shaking.

...

The bus was eerie and the lights flickered in the evening gloom whenever the bus went over a bump in the road. Chrome drew her knees up tightly to her chest and tightened her grip on her bag. Kyoko's text about the other missing Guardians had done nothing more than scare her.

_Mukuro-sama… please tell me you can hear me… please tell me you're okay_.

Inside her head, Mukuro's voice replied, **Ah, but that would be lying, my dear Chrome.**

_Mukuro-sama!_ Chrome straightened up, despite the conversation being a mental one. Somehow, whenever she talked internally with Mukuro, she got the feeling he could see her anyway. _Where are you_?

**I'm really not positive**_**,**_ Mukuro replied oddly.**In a cell somewhere. Tsunayoshi-kun said something about the Millefiore, but I thought they didn't exist in this time period. I'll tell you this, Chrome: you probably aren't safe. **

_I'm not?_

**No. The first thing they did when we woke up was they took our Vongola Gear from us. Luckily, you've got the Mist Vongola Gear right now**_**, **_he reminded her. Chrome reached up and let her fingers brush the Mist Earring on her left ear. **However, that makes you their next target, doesn't it now? Oh – Tsunayoshi-kun has just confirmed from the others that it is indeed the Millefiore who've kidnapped us, although I'm really not sure how. Clearly I remain in this time period, as I'm still in contact with you and I don't remember getting anywhere near that obnoxious bazooka.**

_Mukuro-sama… do you have any idea at all where you are?_

**Nope.**

_That's helpful. _

**Chrome, I want you to find somewhere to hide and stay safe until we can figure out how to escape from here. They haven't yet made a prison I can't find a way out of,**he informed her, laughing.

_What about Vindicare_?

**That's a different story.**

_Mukuro-sama, don't worry!_ Chrome thought suddenly. _Leave this one to us; we'll come save you for sure!_

There was a gap in the mindnoise, like Mukuro was getting bad reception from wherever he was. And then, **Chrome, the beautiful thing about communicating inside our minds is that we can send each other images instead of words if we like. However, I don't believe you intended to send me that image just now. See, usually when you use the word 'we,' it's accompanied by an image of you, Ken and Chikusa. **

_Yes, Mukuro-sama._

**However, the 'we' you used just now was accompanied by an image of you, the Poison Scorpion Bianchi, Sasagawa Ryohei's little sister, and that Lightning flame girl from the other day.**

Chrome blanched. Oh no. Oh no. It was only a matter of time now before Mukuro figured out that the girls had been up to something, and then he'd tell Boss, and it'd be all over-

But Boss was locked up with Mukuro, now wasn't he?

_Mukuro-sama_, Chrome thought, _stop worrying. I'll get you out of there._

**Chrome, that is not what I vehemently suggested you should do-**

The bus went over a large bump in the road and Chrome, for the first time in her life, cut off Mukuro's connection to her mind.

_This time, we're the heroes_, she thought to herself.

* * *

><p>Chrome and Mukuro's 'conversation' was really fun to write. Also, I can't write a single sentence with Ryohei in it without giggling under my breath and creeping out my brother. And I sorta wish I could've managed to make M.M. a liiiiittle bit less of a bitchface, but it's hard to do that and keep her in character at the same time, so you get what you got.<p>

And Chrome!Angst is really cute and really sad at the same time. I kinda want her to be cyincal and snarky inside her head as a result of sharing a body with Mukuro, but she's too shy and lacks the confidence to be that way on the outside (which of course means she's gonna get a crowning moment of awesome when she finally _does_ manage to stand up for herself).

And the Millefiore have landed. Er, sort of.

Review if you like.


	5. Mukuro Bans Everyone From Wearing Skirts

Gah, this chapter is shorter than usual... but it was driving me crazy that I hadn't posted something in like, a week, so what you get is what you got for now. I'm sorta hitting my head against my desk in anger at this chapter, actually, because I feel like not enough happened in it, but at the same time a whole shit-ton of stuff happened too. It's a weird feeling. I don't know what to make of it.

Oh well. Enjoy chapter five; the title is amusing.

* * *

><p>Chapter 5; in which Mukuro Bans Everyone From Wearing Skirts and Kyoko Denies That Boobs Are a Tactical Advantage<p>

Contrary to adult Shouichi's belief, younger Shouichi was not inside of the white, round device. He and the younger Spanner were loose in adult Shouichi's lab, staring at the white, round device, and being completely confused.

"We're in the future, that's for sure," Shouichi announced. "But I haven't been to this version before."

"You've done this before, have you?" Spanner asked, trying not to let his nerves show as he spoke Japanese to a real Japanese person for the first time in his life. Knowing the language was one thing; using it out loud was quite another for him.

"Yeah. Since this is where I turned up, I guess this place must be mine, then," Shouichi wondered aloud. He then turned to Spanner. "Looks sorta familiar… You're Spanner, aren't you? When I got those visions of the future from that Uni girl, they told me who you were."

"Yep. Up 'til a minute ago, I was in Britain. Now I'm just confused."

"Britain? Wow. That's far. I don't know what happened, since I didn't shoot myself-"

"Huh?"

"Long story. But I guess my future self must've found a way to go back in time instead of forward in time."

"Okay. Question," Spanner said. "If this is the future, where are we?"

"I think we're in Italy. There's a note on the desk that says _teleporter tested first time; moved Device to Italy_. I'm pretty sure this big white thing is the Device," he said, pointing at the white, round thing. "And then it says also _Melone Base time travel success_."

"What's a Melone Base?" asked Spanner.

"Search me," Shouichi replied. "Well, we'll be going back to the past in five minutes anyway, so there's no need for us to worry about it."

"Five minutes?"

"About that, yeah."

Spanner and Shouichi stared at each other awkwardly for a few moments.

With a shrug and a sigh, Spanner nodded to the computer on future Shouichi's desk. "Y'think that thing gets internet?"

...

It was a somber morning following the realization that not just some, but all of the Vongola Guardians were missing in action. Upon Bianchi's investigation, Gokudera hadn't ever returned to his apartment, and Hibari had vanished from inside the school in the middle of the day. The Vongola had been compromised, somehow or another, by the Millefiore.

"And to top it all off, Reborn's gone back to Italy to meet up with the Ninth about who-knows-what," complained Bianchi. The four girls were seated around Kyoko's kitchen table, discussing what they should try to do next. Bianchi hadn't expected, when she'd decided on siding with the girls, that they'd be needed so soon after the formation of their little group. Herself and Chrome aside, Kyoko could hardly fire a gun straight, Dying Will bullets or otherwise, and Haru was armed primarily with a wooden sword. "This is just perfect. I mean, come on!"

"We don't even know where they are," Haru sighed. "If it's the mafia, they might've been taken to, like, a main base in Italy or something."

"No, if Mukuro-sama was that far away, I'd know," Chrome contradicted. "When he contacted me, I could tell he was still close to here."

"Wait, really?" Haru gasped. "I might know where they are then! Kyoko, you too!"

"Really?"

"But… I'd need to test a theory. And I'd need the ten-year bazooka," she added.

"Well, sucks for that, then," Bianchi sighed. "The bazooka's with Lambo, and he's been kidnapped too."

"But doesn't that Irie Shouichi guy have one too?" Kyoko reminded them.

"Now that you mention it," Bianchi nodded. "Okay, Haru: You find Irie Shouichi's place and get that bazooka and a bunch of shells for it. But don't take them all, or he might notice. And test your theory, for sure."

"Got it!" Haru grinned and cracked her knuckles.

"Chrome, I want you to stay here with me," Bianchi continued. "We're going to put in some calls to a bunch of people who I think can get us hooked up with some box weapons on short notice."

"Mmkay." Chrome nodded.

"And Kyoko?"

"Yes?"

"Find us our Rain and Cloud Guardians. Girls, meet back here for lunch, and we'll discuss our next move. Let this be the beginning of our first-ever mission! Operation: Save the Vongola Guardians!"

...

Irie Shouichi's house looked like every other house on the street, except for the plaque on the front gate denoting that it was the Irie family's home. As Haru walked up to the front door to ring the bell, she found herself being very thankful for her cosplay skills; they'd allowed her to make a pretty good replica of the girls' uniform from Shouichi's school. Hoping this would work well enough, despite the fact that it was the middle of the day on a school day, Haru rang the doorbell.

An older girl who looked to be about college-age answered it. "Who're you?" she asked cheerfully.

"Hahi! Um, m-my name is, ah…" Haru scrambled and thought fast, desperate not to screw up her first official mission. What if this lady went and looked her up afterwards and found out who she was? She couldn't give out her real name! "My name is… um, Sawada Nana," she replied, saying the first name that popped into her mind. _Sorry, Tsuna-san_, she thought. _I'm gonna be your mom for a little bit._

"Aww, you seem shy! Are you here looking for my silly brother?" the girl asked. "Shouldn't you be in school with him?"

"Um, yes, but… it's between classes right now, and we were working on a project, but he has to get things set up so he, um, asked me to run back here and, um, get something that he forgot to bring to school, so we can, um, give the presentation correctly." Damn, that was a lot of 'um's. Was she really that nervous?

"Oh, really? And he's making _you_ come all the way to _his_ house to do it?"

"Um-" _Crap_.

"You poor thing! Come inside, I'll get you some tea or something! God, my stupid little brother, huh…" And with that, Haru was ushered exuberantly through the door.

"I really don't have time for tea, um…" Haru floundered, trying to be polite. "I need to go get the, um, the rest of the project out of Shouichi-kun's room, if that's okay. We're giving the presentation right after break ends, so I need to hurry!"

"Ah! I'm sorry for distracting you then!" the girl that was probably Shouichi's sister let go of her immediately. "Go get what you need to get, and good luck on the project, Nana-chan!"

_Right, I'm Nana to this girl_, she reminded herself. "Thank you!"

"Shou-chan's room is upstairs on the left," she called after Haru. Haru nodded, thanked her again, and then slipped through the door to Shouichi's room.

It was an utter wreck. Haru had seen boys' rooms before (well, just Tsuna's, admittedly, and his really wasn't that indicative because Reborn lived in there too), but Shouichi's was just _bad_. There were papers and books and dirty clothes (_Yechhhh_, thought Haru) strewn about everywhere, and it was actually hard to find blank floor to step on .

"Now if I were a messy boy, where would I keep something important like a ten-year bazooka?" Haru mused quietly to herself. "Maybe… under my bed?" She took a brief peek under the bed, saw a whole bunch of dust and dirty socks, and decided to look elsewhere.

As she stood up, she happened to glance over at Shouichi's desk. Underneath the desk was a box with the image of bull horns painted on it.

"Isn't Lambo-chan from the Bovino famiglia? Bovino sounds like bovine, and that's cows… so maybe…" Haru slid the box out from under the desk, shoving multiple pieces of dirty laundry aside in the process. She flipped the lid off and grinned; an exact replica of the familiar purple bazooka, plus a bunch of what were very clearly missile shells. She made sure to be incredibly careful moving as many shells as she could carry (ten, she counted) out of the box and wrapping them in her jacket.

"Ooh, is it a surprise?" asked Shouichi's sister as Haru left the house.

"Nope, just fragile."

"Well, good luck with whatever it is you're up to!" Shouichi's sister called after her as she vanished out the front gate.

"God knows I'll need it," Haru muttered to herself as she went.

...

Lunch was on the table and Chrome was on the phone when Haru returned to Kyoko's house. Kyoko herself was at the kitchen table, eating a sandwich (so it wasn't poison cooking; it was safe to eat). Bianchi was sitting across from her, with I-Pin in her lap.

"When did you go get I-Pin-chan?" Haru asked. "Were you worried about her since Lambo-chan got kidnapped? What about Fuuta-kun?"

And then she saw the ring.

On a chain around I-Pin's neck was the Rain ring they'd 'borrowed' from Yamamoto Takeshi. Haru's eyes widened, first in surprise and then in anger, and she grabbed Kyoko by the shoulders.

"I thought I told you I didn't want to get any more children involved!" she gasped. "You _can't_ drag I-Pin-chan into this, you promised you wouldn't!"

"Actually, I never _promised_ anything," Kyoko retorted, gently removing Haru's hands from where they'd twisted angrily into the fabric of her shirt. "And why do you think Bianchi-san had you go get so many ten-year bazooka rounds? You'd only need one to test your theory, right? The rest are for I-Pin-chan. And we needed a Rain Guardian on short notice-"

"That's all well and good, Kyoko," Bianchi interjected, "But you haven't found a Cloud Guardian yet?" Kyoko blinked slowly and looked down at her knees awkwardly.

"I definitely _tried_…" she explained. "But it's not easy to just go up to someone I know and explain that _hey, all our male friends are in the mafia! Wanna put on this magic ring and see if it lights on fire? If it does, you can come dive unprepared into danger with us to try and save our friends from time-traveling psychos!_ It's not that easy, Bianchi-san!" She turned to Haru. "That's why I had to get I-Pin-chan involved; there's no explanation necessary for her, because her adult version already knows."

"I get that, but…" Haru trailed off. She placed the sweatshirt with the bazooka shells on the table and crossed her arms angrily. _Why do we have to get children involved? It's not fair to them; they hardly even know what's going on!_

"Haru, can you show us the theory you wanted to test?" Bianchi suggested, attempting to ease the tension. At this, Haru perked up a bit and nodded eagerly, gingerly unwrapping the bazooka shells.

"See, here's my idea," she explained, carefully lifting up a single shell. "What if the ten-year-bazooka can transport more than just people?" she glanced around. Bianchi and Kyoko looked confused. I-Pin was being her five-year-old self and trying to listen, but not understanding. Chrome, still on the phone, gave Haru a meaningful glance to let her know she was paying attention. "I mean, when we got sent to the future with Tsuna-san and everyone, our clothes and stuff we packed went with us, right?"

"Right," Kyoko replied, nodding curtly.

"Exactly!" Haru cheered, fist-pumping. "So what I want to know is if the bazooka can work on stuff _alone_." She reached into her pocket and pulled out a package of melon bread that she'd purchased on the way back to Kyoko's. Setting down both this and the bazooka shell, she grabbed a pen off the counter and wrote on the bread's packaging, **DO NOT EAT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE**_**.**_

"Haru-chan, what…" Kyoko began, but Haru held up a finger to silence her.

"Just watch and see," she explained. She picked up the bazooka shell, held it over the bread package, and dropped it. The package disappeared in a cloud of pink smoke, as Haru had hoped it would. When the smoke cleared, Haru realized disgustedly that her theory, in fact, had been correct: sitting on the table in front of her was the packaged melon bread… ten years older, still uneaten, and rotted beyond recognition.

"Eww," all the girls said (except for Chrome, who was still talking on the phone, and as such simply made a grossed-out face), and looked the other way.

"Well," Haru stated definitively, staring off at the sink while she waited for the decaying bread to have its five minutes of time travel, "that's that, then. They're in that melon base place."

"Huh?" Bianchi and Kyoko said simultaneously.

"The Millefiore brought their whole base back in time," Haru extrapolated. "The one that's under the underground shopping mall."

"Melone Base," Kyoko corrected.

"Yeah, that thing!" Haru confirmed. "That's where they are. That's where they must've taken the boys!"

Chrome hung up the phone and came over to the table. She made a face at the decomposing bread and then said to Bianchi, "Your friend is going to bring the boxes for us around six-ish."

"Tonight?" Bianchi's eyes widened. Chrome nodded.

"He could only get a couple, though," Chrome continued, "so he says what we get is what we get." She sat down next to Kyoko and gave I-Pin a smile, which was happily returned along with a stream of incomprehensible Chinese.

"So that settles that, then," Bianchi nodded. "The box weapons will get here, and then we'll go straight from here in to rescue the boys. We don't know how much time we've got, so we won't be able to practice with the boxes beforehand."

"But how will we know if we can actually use them?" Kyoko wondered.

"The boys figured them out as they went in the future," Chrome reminded her. "We can too."

"I guess," Haru nodded. Kyoko copied her, albeit slightly reluctantly.

"Okay," Kyoko sighed. "Make whatever preparations we need, and meet at the entrance to the underground mall at eight tonight. Got it?"

The decomposing bread suddenly interrupted the girls by disappearing in a pink poof and reappearing in its newly-bought form. Kyoko eyed it oddly, and then got up and stuffed it into the back of the cabinet above the sink, where it would unfortunately rest for the next ten years, because Kyoko's parents would never notice it and Ryohei would follow the directions on it and simply not eat it.

"Eight o'clock, on the dot," Kyoko repeated. "Let's do this."

"Um," Chrome interjected, stopping everyone, "Mukuro-sama says he has a message for us."

"What?" Haru gasped. "What is it?"

"Um," Chrome paused. "He says… _'don't wear skirts into battle'_."

"Uh, why?" asked Kyoko. "Is he still there? Can he explain?"

"Um," Chrome closed her eye, like she was concentrating on something. She was silent for a second, and then she dictated Mukuro's explanation to them: "Mukuro-sama says that wearing a skirt into battle is like wearing a gigantic magnet into a minefield."

"In what way?" Bianchi asked warily.

Chrome paused, waited a moment, and then made a face like she'd just had ice poured down the back of her shirt. "Mukuro-sama says," she managed awkwardly, "that it's a law of the universe: no matter how many girls in skirts go into battle, they will invariably end up in combat with one or more creepy adult men, and each of the creepy adult men will be able to use a technique involving and/or summon something with tentacles."

Bianchi shivered. Kyoko raised an eyebrow.

"I don't get it," said Haru.

Chrome shivered. "Mukuro-sama says if we don't get it, he doesn't want to have to explain. Just don't wear skirts to fight, he says."

"Oh… kay…" Kyoko mumbled. "Um, Chrome-chan, can you tell Mukuro-kun to please not tell the other Vongola boys that he knows we're coming?"

"He _doesn't_ know," Chrome mumbled. "He thinks it's just me."

"That's for the better, then," Kyoko nodded. "Cut off all communication with him as soon as we enter the base, unless it's an emergency. The boys can't know we're there." And almost as an afterthought, she added, "Yeah, no skirts sounds like a good idea. No skirts, guys. Go home and change."

...

"Shouichi-kun."

"What, Spanner-kun?"

"It's been a _lot_ longer than five minutes…"

"Really? Hadn't noticed." Shouichi glanced at the clock on the computer. Two hours had passed. The pair of them had at one point peered out the door of the laboratory-like room they'd appeared in earlier and decided to stay put due to all the extraneous chaos going on out there, with tons and tons of people demanding in Italian to know where they were and what they were doing there. There were also a lot of people trying to get in contact with some poor guy named Byakuran, who Shouichi figured could use a good break and a cup of tea after all this commotion died down.

"I guess we'll return to the past in a while, then," Shouichi decided, despite the fact that he really didn't know why they hadn't yet. "We can't be stuck here forever, after all…"

If they knew that the only person capable of sending them back to their own time was Shouichi's older self, and that Shouichi's older self was ten years away from sending them back where they needed to be, younger Shouichi might not have been so sure about that fact.

...

Kyoko arrived at the entrance to the underground mall at five to eight and was surprised to see nearly everyone there already. Haru sat perched on a railing near the stairs, fiddling with her switchblade. Bianchi, with I-Pin on her shoulder and a small cardboard case that probably held the box weapons, was leaning up against a wall. Chrome was lurking in the shadow of a telephone pole, eyeing something on the ground with vague interest.

"They're all Cloud boxes," Bianchi complained as soon as Kyoko was within earshot. "All of 'em. We can't use these." She opened the cardboard box and showed Kyoko three identical Cloud box weapons. "This is not good. We don't even have a Cloud Guardian-"

"Yes, we do," Kyoko interjected. "She's just not here yet."

"We do?" Haru squeaked, jumping down off the railing. "You managed to find one?"

"Yeah. Wait a minute, though, okay? She said she might be a bit late."

"Who is it? How'd you manage to convince her? I thought you said you were having trouble figuring out how to get people involved with this. How'd she take the news about the mafia and all that? Who is it anyway? Is she even actually coming?"

"She's coming, all right," Kyoko nodded. "She wouldn't stand us up, knowing we're going in to save her boyfriend."

"Hahi? Boyfriend? Whose girlfriend is she?"

"My brother's," Kyoko smirked morbidly. "And here she is now." She pointed down the street at an approaching figure. Making her way down the street with a metal baseball bat she'd borrowed from the school (the lack of Hibari had made busting into campus much easier) and thankfully following the no-skirts rule was Kurokawa Hana.

"_Your brother is dating Hana-san?_"Haru asked, completely in awe. "Lucky him!"

"I know, I couldn't believe it either," Kyoko joked. "But they're happy together, and that's what matters. And what's more, she wants to save him, mafia or otherwise."

"Does she know how to fight at _all_?" Haru whispered.

"No, but her flames were bigger and brighter than yours and mine combined, the first time we tried them, so she shouldn't have any trouble with the box weapons if we explain them to her."

"Kyoko, I'm here," Hana announced, stopping in front of the other girls. "You… uh, wanna introduce me to your, um… mafia buddies?" She shrugged awkwardly, stuffing then hand not carrying the baseball bat into her pocket.

"Oh, yeah!" Kyoko nodded. "This is Bianchi-san; she's Gokudera-kun's older sister." Bianchi nodded to Hana. "Um, this is I-Pin-chan; she lives at Tsuna-kun's house." I-Pin smiled brilliantly at Hana. Hana, despite hating children, pretended to smile back. "You've met Haru-chan before… and this is Chrome-chan. She's one of Tsuna-kun's Guardians, like I told you about."

"Right," Hana nodded. "I always knew they were up to something _weird._ And in order to save Ryohei-kun and the guys, we have to use your weird mafia magic?"

"It's not magic," Bianchi sighed. "Here, take these." She handed Hana one of the box weapons.

"What the heck am I supposed to do with a cube?" Hana asked cynically.

"It's a weapon," Chrome explained vaguely. Hana made a disbelieving face at her. "We should hurry. Mukuro-sama says the only thing keeping the Millefiore from killing them right now is that Byakuran wants to do it himself, and he's still in the future."

"Millefiore? Byakuran? Future, what? Kyoko, you totally left stuff out of that explanation!" Hana complained, tugging at the sleeve of Kyoko's jacket. Kyoko bit her lip; she'd really wanted to explain, but Hana had been a last resort as to who she could involve, and she hadn't had much time to explain between Haru's theory-testing with the bazooka shells and their meeting up at eight.

"I'm sorry, Hana…"

"Kyoko, what _exactly _are we about to get ourselves into here? Like, I can already tell this isn't just gonna be some kinda gang figh- _is that a gun?_" Hana squeaked, suddenly noticing the handgun strapped to Kyoko's belt.

"Maybe," Kyoko dodged. "I'll explain everything on the way down."

"_Down? _Kyoko, what the hell."

"I'm really, really sorry!" Kyoko insisted. "But we've gotta get going!" At that, she shook Hana off of her arm and climbed up to stand on a nearby retaining wall-garden. In the sharp glow from the streetlights, Kyoko's silhouette fell on the flowers eerily, and she couldn't help but remember the flowers she'd grown herself hardly a few days ago, with her newly discovered powers. It seemed much further away than it actually was, but having a crisis-at-hand to deal with tended to do things like that.

"Alright, ladies, listen up," Kyoko announced, despite the fact that the girls already had their eyes on her. "Our boys have been kidnapped and imprisoned by some of the baddest bad guys on the planet." Kyoko pretended not to see Hana's eyes widen. "But that's exactly what we're here for, isn't it? To back up the boys when they need it most, to stand in as the heroes when the heroes are the ones that need saving… to protect the people we care about most, just like they were doing for us. That's what we're here for. And what we're here for tonight, right now, is to charge directly into enemy territory with hardly any training or preparation and no idea what we're up against for the sake of the boys we love!"

Hana raised her hand like she was in class. Kyoko glanced and nodded at her.

"That speech was really not inspiring, sweetie," Hana moaned. "In fact, it sorta made me wanna go home."

"I wasn't done yet," Kyoko complained. Hana slouched and leaned heavily on her baseball bat like a cane. "Anyway," Kyoko continued, "Despite the fact that we're going in unprepared against a legion of powerful evil guys, we have one advantage they definitely don't!"

"Boobs?" Hana guessed sarcastically.

"No, I'm pretty sure there are some girls in the Millefiore," Haru mused. Chrome nodded in agreement.

"Not boobs, you guys! Boobs aren't a tactical advantage! Although we've got those too," she conceded. "What we have, that they _don't_, is the element of surprise!"

"I wonder about that," said a voice from behind Kyoko, and then, "Open fire."

* * *

><p>God, I love Hana. She's freakin' hilarious. I chose her as the Cloud Guardian for one reason and one reason only, and that's because she's not involved, she'd probably think they were all insane for believing this mafia shit, and at the same time she'd do anything to protect Kyoko, so she couldn't say no to it when she was asked. She plays the aloof card pretty well by being snarky and out-of-the-loop, but she'll fight to save the guys anyway because her best friend is charging into danger and her boyfriend is already <em>in<em> danger.

Before someone asks why _Mukuro_ of all people instates the no skirts rule, it's because of this: I figure that if he would use that tactic against someone himself, he wouldn't want it being used on Chrome. On top of that, she probably told him about the fight with Glo Xinia and Mukuro's genre savvy enough to realize that if life were a hentai manga, that fight would've gone scarily different.

And now that I've thoroughly disturbed you with _that_, just thought I ought to add that boobs are _so_ a tactical advantage, Kyoko.

Review if you'd like to.


	6. Kyoko Blows Shit Up

Hey there.

So this chapter's even shorter than the last one *cries* but there's a reason for that: I'm going stir-crazy and I can't focus. I'm about to go to overnight camp for a month (which means you won't get chapter seven until the end of August. I'm sorry. It sucks, I know). But by that point, I'll actually have an idea of where I want this to go next (because when it comes to fanfic, I really never do. The only thing I really know is that at some point, I want somebody to kick Glo Xinia in the balls).

SO ANYWAY. Chapter six. There's actually a bit of action in this, and we get inside the boys' heads for a bit too!

Enjoy!

* * *

><p>Chapter six; in which Kyoko Blows Shit Up and The Boys Begin to Get The Notion That Something They Wouldn't be Happy to Hear About is Going on<p>

Tsuna was not happy, and part of that was due to the fact that he was disarmed and locked up in a cell that persistently stopped him from using his Dying Will flames _in Melone Base_. He could tell his Guardians weren't very happy either; because of the odd number of people, Tsuna had ended up in a cell on his own, whereas all the Guardians had to share space with someone else in addition to being verily pissed off.

Lambo and Ryohei were coping mostly by ignoring each other's existences (Lambo was throwing a tantrum and Ryohei was shouting at the Millefiore guards). Gokudera had found a pack of cards in his pants pocket and was teaching Yamamoto how to play Blackjack out of sheer boredom, so they were dealing with it okay (just so long as Yamamoto continued pretending he understood the rules and Gokudera didn't catch on to the fact that he didn't and started shouting at him). Mukuro and Hibari (_whoever was stupid enough to put them in a cell together is likely going to die a horrid death later_, Tsuna thought) were arguing, which was actually unusual; Tsuna had expected that, despite not having weapons on them and being stuck in cells that suppressed their flames, they would be trying to kill each other. Instead, they were sitting right next to each other in a corner, glaring and growling and arguing in whispers (and Hibari was _blushing, _what the hell). For the life of him, Tsuna couldn't hear what they were saying and was desperately curious to find out.

"Uh, hey, guys…" Tsuna turned toward the rather familiar voice of Irie Shouichi as it suddenly sounded down the hallway. "This is sorta awkward." Shouichi came to a stop in front of Tsuna's cell and did his best not to double over in pain. "Ow, my stomach…"

"Shouichi-kun, what's going on?" Tsuna asked angrily. "Where's Reborn, what are the Millefiore doing in this era, and why have we been locked up?"

"Too many questions…" Shouichi complained. "Ugh. Byakuran-san used Uni-chan to look into the future and saw that the Vongola were going to come to the future and kill him. So he had me send the entire Millefiore into the past to capture you, Melone Base and all. Except we were supposed to come back to the era right _before_ you all got sent to the future, not _after_ it. That's time travel for you." Shouichi winced and attempted to pretend his stomach didn't hurt. Tsuna saw straight through it with his Hyper Intuition.

"Okay, now why are we locked up?" he asked.

"Two reasons," Shouichi explained. Tsuna glanced around and noted that all his Guardians (the still-screaming Lambo aside) were now listening to Shouichi rather intently. "First reason is that Byakuran-san is gonna come back to the past and complete the Tre-Ni-Sette here instead of in the future, so he needs your Vongola Gear. But he wants to kill you himself, he said, so we have to keep you here to wait for him."

"And the second reason?" Gokudera growled from the cell next door.

"Because I can't let you out, or the rest of the Millefiore would suspect me of being a traitor!" he complained. "I know that the you right now has already gone to the future and you know I'm on your side, so believe me when I say I'm truly sorry that I can't let you out! We have to keep you here. I _wish_ I could let you go so you could go on the run with Chrome Dokuro and protect the Mist Vongola Gear-"

"Doesn't Mukuro have that?" Tsuna asked quizzically.

"Nope," Mukuro replied. "Chrome and I switch off wearing it every day; she had it on when I was captured. Otherwise I might've put up a better fight and never have been captured to begin with." He crossed his arms indignantly. Hibari gave him an odd, unreadable look, and Mukuro tried to suppress a glare.

"Yeah, that about sums it up," Shouichi sighed. "We have just under two days until Byakuran-san comes here from the future. Two days for us to come up with a way to defeat him."

"You could just give us back our Vongola Gear and watch him get his ass handed to him," Gokudera suggested. "Cos we're _way_ stronger now than we were when we went to the future. Which, for you, hasn't happened yet."

"Aren't you messing with the space-time continuum, by the way?" asked Mukuro. Everyone stared at him. "Well, he _is_. If he kills us before we show up in _his_ future, then that future won't have happened and therefore Byakuran wouldn't have been able to predict said future, and thus would never have gone back in time to kill us."

Nobody spoke for a few seconds.

"Makes sense, actually," Gokudera agreed.

"That's what I tried to tell him," Shouichi whined, winging his hands around exasperatedly. "But he didn't listen!"

"I extremely don't get it!" Ryohei announced. Yamamoto laughed and nodded his agreement.

"Well, whatever the heck's going on, it's stupid," Tsuna decided. "And where's Reborn?"

"That," Shouichi said, "I do not know. Wherever he is, I hope it's far away from wherever Byakuran's going to appear in this era, because he's after the Arcobaleno too, remember?"

"Crap."

Shouichi opened his mouth to say something else, but was cut off by one of the Cervello women that trailed after him tapping him on the shoulder. He turned to acknowledge her, and she informed him, "Irie-sama, we have a bit of a problem outside."

…

Kyoko opened fire first. She didn't aim. She just shot. And shot and shot and shot out of pure terror, because she'd never been in a firefight and she _seriously_ didn't want to, so her suddenly adrenaline-flooded mind had decided that if she shot _them_ first, they wouldn't be around much longer to have a chance to shoot _her_. She'd forgotten she had Dying Will bullets loaded into the magazine of the gun, so each explosion wasn't just a bang, it was a _**BANG**_ and Kyoko stopped shooting after four because she realized dimly that she'd blown a large hole in the street. The activation factor of her Sun flames had really gone to town with the gunpowder ignition.

She lowered the gun, eyes wide, and surveyed the damages. Once the dust from blown-up asphalt had whisked itself away on the evening breeze, it was pretty clear to Kyoko that if they hadn't been caught in the blasts, that the girls' attackers had escaped.

She tried hard not to look at the bodies lying in the street of the few who hadn't been lucky enough to escape.

"Is everyone okay?" Kyoko asked shakily, glancing around.

"I'm okay," Haru replied, equally shaky, as she emerged from the staircase down to the underground mall. "Startled, but okay."

"Fine," Chrome said simply, standing up. She must've dove for cover when the shooting started. Kyoko wondered if she ought to have given a bit more warning before unloading her gun into the enemy.

"We're good over here," Bianchi replied, dusting off herself and I-Pin.

"Hana-chan?" Kyoko called. Hana peered out from under the bench Kyoko had been standing on (at some point she must've jumped off, she assumed). "You alright?"

Hana extricated herself from under the bench and dusted off her pants. Her eyes were wide and her hands trembled. She nervously shouldered the baseball bat she'd brought with her, and stuffed the one box weapon Bianchi had managed to give her into her pocket.

"I'm just peachy," Hana managed, her voice cracking. "Just great."

"You don't sound great," Haru noted.

"Of _course_ I'm not doing great!" Hana shouted suddenly, startling everyone. "My sweet, innocent best friend just pumped a couple rounds into guys with military-grade rifles without even _thinking _about it! And not just normal shots, some freaky kind of shit that blew up and put a freakin' _crater_ in the street! We're lucky there's no civilians around right now! How did you even _do_ that?" Hana paused, clenched her fists. "Never mind; I decided I probably don't want to know. This is all _insane_, and I don't want any part of it!"

"Hana…" Kyoko mumbled.

Hana grimaced. There was a long pause, and then she continued, in a much more normal tone of voice, "Well… that's what I'd like to say… but if Ryohei-kun's in danger from stuff that uses power like _that_…"

"Guys, wrap up the chit-chat and the whole being on the fence about doing this or not," Bianchi called over. "Ten bucks says the Millefiore's gonna be sending out more troops to see why the first ones aren't responding any more. If we're going in, we're going in _now_." She paused. "Exactly how _are_ we going in?"

"Air ducts," Chrome replied simply, weaving between Bianchi and Haru to lead the way down the stairs. "That's how Boss and the guys did it in the future."

"Boss?" Hana asked, following Kyoko closely as she headed down the stairs with the rest of the girls.

"Tsuna-kun. He's a mafia boss, remember? He's sorta _our_ boss too, except he doesn't know about us. We're a secret organization that Haru-chan and I started," Kyoko explained.

"Wait, wait! We get to go through the air ducts?" Haru squealed. "That's just like an action movie! How exciting!"

"It's not as fun as it sounds," Bianchi informed her. "I've had to before. It sorta sucks. And it's usually cobwebby."

"Eugh," Haru complained.

"Wait," Hana questioned again. "I thought you said there were seven elements or whatever. But there are six of us. Where's person number seven?"

"Can we save the questions for another time?" Bianchi muttered. "We really need to get going!"

"There isn't a person number seven, anyway," Kyoko explained. "Besides the fact that Sky flames are really rare and it'd be hard to find another person on such short notice, we're self-proclaimed Vongola Guardians. And the leader of the Guardians, the one with the Sky flame, is the boss of the famiglia."

"That's what Tsuna-san says, at least," Haru interjected. "So Tsuna-san _would_ be person number seven, technically, but he's imprisoned too."

"I thought we were the girl Guardians," Hana muttered to herself as they crossed the underground parking lot. As Bianchi set to work unscrewing the cover of an air duct they could use to get in, she mumbled, "Well, I guess Sawada's feminine enough sometimes that he could count."

"And I thought you wanted nothing to do with this," Kyoko whispered to her. "For someone who's just in it this one time to save her boyfriend, you sure are curious about the whole big deal of it."

"Oh, shut up," Hana retaliated.

The girls slipped one by one into the air ducts, Bianchi leading the way for the sole reason that she had experience with this, and Chrome right behind her on the off chance that she remembered the layout of the base from the future and would be able to maneuver them into a safe room. Following her was I-Pin, who was small enough that she could walk instead of crawl through the vents, followed by Kyoko, then Hana, and Haru taking up the rear.

"When we get closer in, there may or may not be laser traps," Bianchi whispered back to the others. "So don't be alarmed."

"As if this whole shebang isn't alarming already," Hana muttered under her breath.

…

For the time being, at least, Mukuro had given up on whatever argument he was having with Hibari, with the promise that he'd win eventually if he just kept being persistent about it. Instead, he was pacing back and forth, investigating the cell door.

"What exactly are you doing?" Tsuna called over to him from across the hall.

Mukuro smirked. "I'm trying to see if there's an efficient and plausible way to break us out of here," he replied. "They have yet to make a prison I can't find a way out of, Tsunayoshi-kun."

"The cells are unbreakable," one of the Millefiore guards mentioned. Mukuro ignored him.

"What about the Vindice's prison?" Gokudera asked from the cell next door. Mukuro flinched.

"I was in a medically-induced coma that time, so it doesn't count," Mukuro snapped. He glared at the barred cell door and gave it a kick for good measure (or maybe just because he could). "This is very frustrating," he announced. "I'm even having trouble communicating with Chrome from in here; Usually I just let my consciousness float around until I pick up on hers. In here, it's like having terrible phone reception or something."

"You liken your possession of people to phone signals?" Hibari teased.

"Yeah? Well…" Mukuro searched around for a barbed comment he could volley back. "Your death-threats sound like sexual innuendoes," he decided. Hibari blinked as if he hadn't realized that. "You even do battle with _handcuffs,_ you kinky bastard."

"Huh?" Hibari raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean, kinky? Explain this to me, Rokudo."

Everyone stared at Hibari.

"Wait," Tsuna said, trying not to blush. "You've been carrying those handcuffs around without getting the connotations of them?"

"What connotations?"

Yamamoto laughed awkwardly. "Hibari, even _I _get the innuendo_._" At this, Hibari looked genuinely confused. Everyone else just looked uncomfortable, except for Mukuro, who was barely containing his laughter.

"Could you talk about something less… embarrassing?" one of the Millefiore guards asked loudly.

"Is this bothering you?" Mukuro questioned.

"A bit."

"Then no way in hell," Mukuro replied with a grin. "In fact, I'll probably do everything in my power to make it worse." With that, he turned to Hibari. "I'll explain the connotations to you if you'd like, Kyouya-kun. But then you'll owe me _two_ favors…"

"Wait, why does he owe you one favor to begin with?" Tsuna wondered.

"Oh, it's a bit odd, really," Mukuro explained, sitting down in the middle of the floor and crossing his legs. "One of Kyouya-kun's Cloud rings went missing, and he thought someone stole it. It went missing right after Sasagawa Ryohei's little sister paid an odd visit to his house."

"Kyoko did? What for?" Tsuna asked.

"Hell if I know," Mukuro shrugged. "Anyway, he wondered if she hadn't been the one to steal it somehow. And then he says he ended up seeing her with Chrome another girl called Miura at this shady weapons dealer downtown."

"_What?"_ Not only Tsuna, but Gokudera and Ryohei reacted to this.

"It gets better," Mukuro grinned. "All this while, Chrome's been being very secretive for some reason. Kyouya-kun asked me to question her about what they're up to, because maybe she would know if they had his Cloud ring. And so I did, and she lied to me. Pretty suspicious, I'd say. Either way, I did that favor for Kyouya-kun, so now he owes _me_ one. That's all there is to it."

To all the boys except Hibari and Mukuro (and Lambo, who was too young to notice the tension), that was _not_ all there was to it. In the following silence, Tsuna, Gokudera, Ryohei and Yamamoto were all thinking jumbled-around versions of the exact same thing, and it went sort of like this:

_Kyoko/Haru/Chrome couldn't possibly have stolen from Hibari. That's not possible. He'd kill them. What were they doing at a _weapons_ dealer? They have no need for weapons. What would they even want with one of Hibari's rings anyway? Come to think of it, one of my rings has been missing too… But there's no way the girls can be behind it, right? They have no use for the rings. What would they want with them? They don't need them. WHAT were they doing at a weapons dealer? Hibari didn't say what they bought… Chrome keeping secrets from Mukuro? I didn't know that was possible. A _weapons_ dealer?_

"Something really strange is going on here," Tsuna said aloud. The other boys (to whom the problem seemed more prevalent) nodded in agreement.

Mukuro smirked. "On that note, I shall now explain to Kyouya-kun the _interesting_ connotations of those handcuffs of his."

…

The girls managed to sneak into the base, dropping out of the air ducts into a storage room that was empty of people. They soon found out _why_ it was empty; it locked from the outside and contained an absurd amount of large explosives. If anyone wanted to escape the room by destroying the door, they'd likely ignite _some_thing by accident.

"I'll handle this one, ladies," Bianchi nodded, whipping out a large metal lunchbox.

"Where'd she get _that_ from?" Hana muttered to herself. Kyoko shrugged and figured it was better not to wonder and simply be glad it was there. "And what's she going to use it for, by the way?" Hana inquired.

"Poison cooking," Chrome replied, keeping her words to a minimum as usual.

"Poison _what_?"

Bianchi took out a rice ball that was seeping purple fumes, and mashed it into the handle of the door. The poison (Kyoko had always assumed it contained acid of some kind) quickly melted through the door, and Bianchi stuck her hand through and twisted the handle from the other side. Before opening the door, however, she pulled back and knelt down to look through the hole she'd created.

"Checking for guards patrolling or anything," she informed them.

"If there were guards, wouldn't they have noticed the door melting?" Haru asked.

Beat.

"Shut up," Bianchi muttered, opening the door. "Coast's clear anyway."

The six girls filed out into the hallway as carefully as they could, peering around at… well, at everything and nothing in particular, because there wasn't much to look at; it was a bland stretch of hallway. Not even a security camera in sight.

"You sure we're in the right place?" Kyoko asked. "I expected it to be crawling with troops or something."

"They probably don't have patrols out because they don't expect anyone to be coming in," Bianchi replied. "When the boys attacked Melone Base in the future, Irie was expecting it, so he deployed all sorts of forces to fight them in order to make them stronger. If we run into someone, they're going to be _surprised._"

With that, Chrome (the only one of them who'd ever been inside Melone Base before) took the lead, and the girls ran off down a hallway with no idea what to expect other than the fact that it wasn't expecting _them_.

…

Shouichi boggled at the main computer screen. The Cervello women had led him back up to the main surveillance room to show him a scene from outside the base, where four large craters had been blown into the street. A handful of Black Spell troops were lying, likely dead but hopefully unconscious in the craters. A few of them had made it back inside and were recounting to Shouichi exactly what'd happened.

"These tiny little chicks, plus Dokuro and Poison Scorpion Bianchi were all outside the base, talking all big about busting in here and saving the Vongola brats!" one of them said.

"So we were gonna get rid of them and capture Dokuro," added another, "But when we tried to surprise them, this itty-bitty little thing whips out a handgun and blows us all away with these huge bursts of Sun flames!"

"Destroyed the street, too!" added a third.

Shouichi nodded and bit his lip. He hadn't predicted Dokuro gathering an army and charging in herself to save the boys… this was _bad_. And he didn't even know who the other girls _were_! What if they were trained assassins or something? They would have a whole lot of hell on their hands if that were the case…

"What did these girls look like?" Shouichi asked blankly. "Besides Dokuro and Bianchi."

"Uh, well, the little chick, right? She was sorta short, with orangey hair and big doe eyes. Wearing a lot of pink. Sun ring on her left hand? No box weapons I could see," one of the guys said.

"This other one had a ponytail. Dark hair, Lightning ring. Carrying a wooden sword."

"Another one had long black hair and a baseball bat. She looked kinda confused. Wearin' a Cloud ring."

And all three men said in unison, "And a little baby Chinese girl with a braid stickin' off her head."

Shouichi listened to these descriptions and the three Black Spell men watched his expression change from one of blank confusion to vague surprise to outright shock.

Finally, after a long period of debate and various interesting facial expressions, Shouichi's stomach started hurting again and he doubled over with a grimace.

"Fuck," he muttered angrily. "You can't be serious."

* * *

><p>Yay.<p>

(You have no idea how entertaining it is for me to write the guys' bits... I'm just sitting in front of the screen grinning the whole time)

I'll see you lot in a month!

Review if you like (it isn't gonna make me update any faster this time, but it'll be nice to hear from you all when I get back next month).


	7. Chrome Regrets the Laws of Anime

Wah, it's been WAYYYY too longgg... I apologize so much for the really long wait, everyone! I should've finished this chapter way way way back in August, but I sort of fail at life and being organized and also I've been re-reading Zatch Bell (confessions of a procrastinator, right there) but but but AUGHH and this chapter's not as long as I wish it was but I couldn't think of a better way to logically continue it from where it ended and

I'll shut up now and just let you read. You've been waiting too long.

* * *

><p>Chapter seven; in which Everyone Wonders Why The Mafia Can Use Magic and Chrome Regrets the Laws of Anime<p>

"So how the heck am I supposed to use this box thing?" Kurokawa Hana asked grumpily, turning her newly acquired "box weapon" over in her hands. It looked like a child's toy, all plastic and shiny and purple. Like something she'd see in the display window of a toy store, bearing a sign that said "Press the button and lights will flash" or something on that order. Hana was boggled as to how a little box could be a weapon. She wondered if this wasn't all some complex practical joke, and if it was, how on earth had Kyoko and her weirdo friends had the time and money to set all this shit up?

"You have to light the flame on the ring, like Kyoko-chan showed you," said Miura Haru, "and then stick the ring with the flames in the box. That's how Tsuna-san did it."

To Hana, this explanation sounded like utter bullshit. Yes, Kyoko had shown her that flames could come shooting out of the ring she'd given her earlier that day, but Hana was nearly positive that somehow she'd been pranked, because there was no way in seven hells that she had magic powers. Yes, that's it. It was a prank, and Kyoko shooting beams of sparkling yellow fire out of her _gun – Kyoko has a gun! – _earlier was just a trick of the light. Or a fluke. Or a… something. It had to be something, something with a reasonable explanation.

"That sounds like utter bullshit," Hana finally replied, after much deliberation. Her gut reaction to things was usually right.

"It's true," Chrome and Bianchi both told her, neither actually turning around to look at her. Over the course of the brief time she'd spent in their presence, Hana had developed a distinct opinion of both of them: Bianchi was exactly like Hana wanted to be when she was older (calm, mature and responsible), and Chrome was what Hana hoped she hadn't been when she was younger (shy, unconfident and permanently nervous) .

After a moment of consideration, Hana said to the world at large: "If you guys are the mafia, I'm a loaf of bread."

"You're a pretty strange-looking loaf of bread then," Bianchi replied. "I'm a hit woman. Reborn is a hitman."

"Reborn is an _infant_," Hana growled, not entirely sure why she was defending the normalcy of an obnoxious child.

"Tsuna-san really is a mafia boss," Haru added. Hana scoffed. "No, seriously! He's actually the boss of the Vongola famiglia, and Ryohei-san is one of his Guardians. That's why he's in danger right now; the Guardians got targeted."

The girls paused in their conversation to peer around a corner and check for traps or "enemies," but apparently the coast was clear, because Chrome waved them around the corner without hesitation.

"Okay, so let's pretend this shit makes sense," Hana conceded. "Sawada, the most pathetic boy I've ever met, is a mafia boss. And he's got _Guardians. _Kyoko, didn't you say this Chrome chick is one of his Guardians too?"

"Yes, but technically it's Mukuro-kun's job," Kyoko informed her as the group of them continued down the hall. "Chrome-chan and Mukuro-kun are sort of a package deal."

"Never mind that," Hana interjected. "My real question is _why are the mafia using magic?_"

Everyone stopped moving right in the middle of the hallway. Chrome and Bianchi looked at each other. I-Pin babbled something in Chinese that might've been meaningful to the girls if any of them understood Chinese (but they didn't). Kyoko glanced around nervously, and Haru put on a comedic, over-dramatic thinking expression.

Simultaneously, they all replied, "That's a really good question."

_As soon as we're done saving my idiot boyfriend,_ Hana decided, _I'm gonna get to the bottom of all this weirdness, once and for all. No matter _how_ strange it really is._

...

Hibari sat in the corner of his unfortunately-shared cell with his back to everyone and debated the various merits and failings of trying to strangle Mukuro with everyone watching. He assumed Gokudera Hayato would, at the very least, egg him on. But everyone else (with the possible exclusion of that little brat Lambo, who was still throwing a tantrum) would attempt to stop him.

Mukuro was trying to remove Hibari from the corner, but his attempts were to no avail, because Hibari had at this point stopped listening to him. Actually, Hibari had stopped listening several minutes previous, in fact, when Mukuro had finished outlining the basic innuendoes surrounding Hibari's various weapons and catch-phrases and began going into details. Hibari would never admit that he _was_ legitimately curious about it, but _definitely not in front of Sawada and his idiot brigade_.

"Kyouya, I'm sorry if I embarrassed you, but you've got to learn to deal with these facts of life at some point!" Mukuro teased from somewhere a few feet behind Hibari. With a brief glance over his shoulder, Hibari ascertained that Mukuro was smirking at him, and so he growled angrily at the illusionist.

"Mukuro, maybe you should leave him be," Sawada suggested from his cell across the hall. _Yes, Mukuro,_ Hibari agreed. _Leave me the fuck alone._ "Stop pestering him about that."

"Fine," Mukuro conceded. "I'll get back to pestering him about that favor he owes me."

_Shit. _Hibari cringed. Mukuro didn't notice or otherwise didn't care, because he proceeded to drape himself over Hibari's shoulders and wrap his arms around the prefect's neck.

"Get off," Hibari whispered angrily, so that only Mukuro could hear. "People are watching, you cretin."

"You know what I want that favor to be, Kyouya," Mukuro murmured in reply. "And since you owe me, you really don't have a choice if I want to just go ahead and do it without your consent."

"You sound like a rapist," Hibari complained. Mukuro chuckled under his breath. "Also, if you even _dare_ to do that without my consen-"

Hibari didn't finish his sentence, because Mukuro took the liberty of slapping a hand over his mouth and shutting him up.

"Hey, everyone!" Mukuro announced, much to Hibari's horror. "We've got a secret we'd like to tell you. And you've got to take it seriously, okay? This is a legitimate, serious moment, and we believe we owe it to you to inform you of such an important part of our lives. You see, Kyouya-kun and I are-"

Hibari twisted around and punched Mukuro in the stomach.

"What did I just say, herbivore? If you even dare to-"

"Dating."

"Huh?" Hibari stared at Mukuro for a moment in blank confusion. And then he realized that Mukuro had in fact finished the sentence that he'd interrupted seconds before.

"Kyouya-kun and I are dating," Mukuro repeated. "And because you consider us your friends, even if we don't necessarily reciprocate those feelings of friendship, I at least saw it fit to inform you of the fact that the two of us are in a relationship."

Hibari was absolutely thunderstruck.

"We really don't care if you hate us," Mukuro continued, much to Hibari's increasingly obvious displeasure. "For the most part, we already don't like you that much, and we're pretty sure about half of you don't like us either. So not much difference would be made."

Hibari, at this point boiling with rage at the fact that Mukuro would _dare_ to drag him out of the closet in such an undesirable and unceremonious manner, took this chance to remove his jacket, wrap the sleeve around Mukuro's neck, and attempt to strangle him with it. Unfortunately, Mukuro managed to see through this action, and before Hibari could tighten the sleeve enough around Mukuro's neck, the illusionist slipped out of the loop and flopped over onto Hibari's lap.

Hibari resisted the urge to rage-kill someone.

"And that about sums it up," he finished.

The rest of the Vongola was silent (except for Lambo, who, continuing in his tantrum, had decided to scream loudly and rattle the bars of his cell).

Eventually, Sawada gathered up the brain cells necessary to ask a stupid question. "Wait," he said blankly, "You're gay? Both of you?"

"Yep," Mukuro replied with a smile. Hibari turned away and decided this was all rather overwhelming and he'd really like his tonfas back. Yes, his tonfas would be nice right now. It was always so comforting to have the option of slamming cold steel into the face of someone who was pissing him off. And Mukuro always put up such a nice fight, too... And it always ended nicely-

"Why didn't you tell us earlier?" Yamamoto wondered, interrupting Hibari's reverie.

"You didn't ask," Mukuro snickered. Hibari scoffed.

"Okay, Mukuro I can get being gay," Sawada nodded. Mukuro chuckled and adjusted his position on Hibari's lap (Hibari growled at him in place of whining uncomfortably, because that was just something Hibari Kyouya didn't _do_). "Gokudera-kun and I had already guessed that, even. But how come my hyper intuition didn't alert me to the fact that Hibari-san is too?"

Out of the corner of his eye, Hibari saw Mukuro grin and knew he was about to regret whatever came out of the illusionist's mouth.

"Because Kyouya-kun is such a tsundere that even_ I_ had trouble telling," he said, snuggling up against Hibari.

_I'm a what?_

"That's enough, Rokudo," Hibari growled, shoving Mukuro off his lap. "You're pissing me off. Stop crowding."

"That's another thing," Sawada added. "If Hibari hates crowds, and he _seriously_ hates _you_, why and how the hell are you dating anyway? When did this even start? Is this a new thing?"

"It's been about three weeks," Mukuro replied. "As for the why and how, it's really a funny story-"

"I'm sorry to interrupt what's probably a wonderful team bonding moment," said Irie Shouichi suddenly as he appeared in the hallway between the cells, "But we've kind of got a really major problem involving Chrome Dokuro and your other female friends."

"What?" Sawada said, immediately distracted.

"They're sort of inside Melone Base," Irie continued, attempting to pretend that his nervousness wasn't churning his stomach around.

"_WHAT?"_ Not only Sawada, but everyone aside from Hibari and Lambo was flipping a shit now.

"Yeah… it's sort of an issue. We're working on resolving it. I'm attempting to make sure they don't run into anyone dangerous, but I can't get in contact with a lot of the higher-ranked Black and White Spell members…"

"You must be kidding," Mukuro deadpanned, standing up and walking right over to the front of the cell to glare at Irie. "Chrome aside, I've briefly met Tsunayoshi's female friends. The little redhead sister of Sasagawa, and the brunette with the ponytail, yes?"

"Yes, them," Irie confirmed. "Along with Poison Scorpion Bianchi, I-Pin and another girl I don't know."

"The other two though, Sasagawa's sister and the brunette girl. They can't fight. They can't even control their flames correctly."

"Flames?" asked Sawada, Gokudera, Sasagawa and Yamamoto.

"Yes," Mukuro nodded. "Flames."

"They can't use flames," Yamamoto stated.

"Yes, in fact they can," Mukuro countered. "At least the brunette one can; she and the other one came to visit Chrome the other day, and I thought they were assassins of some sort so I attacked them. The brunette girl defended herself with Lightning flames. And Sasagawa's sister had a Sun ring on as well."

"And," Hibari added, finally contributing something to the conversation, "I saw them at the weapons shop, right? Sasagawa-chan had purchased a gun."

_"WHAT?"_ Ryohei shouted (because he appeared to not have a volume control).

"Why didn't you guys tell us this earlier?" Tsuna whined.

Mukuro and Hibari looked at each other for a brief moment, and then said in tandem, "You didn't ask."

...

The girls made it relatively far into the base before running into anyone at all, and as soon as they _did_ run into someone, Chrome immediately wished she'd taken the group a different direction. _Of all people_, she thought morbidly to herself, _why must it be him_?

And it wasn't like they could turn around and avoid his gaze and run down a different hall before they were seen, because Chrome had accidentally walked around a corner at the exact same time Glo Xinia had been walking around it in the other direction, and they'd run right into each other.

Chrome jumped back and readied her trident. Her last encounter with Glo Xinia had been decidedly less than pleasant, and if she remembered correctly it'd involved a lot of horrifying innuendoes. If it hadn't been for Mukuro's help, she'd have been-

She didn't want to think about what she'd have been if Mukuro hadn't been there. But this time Mukuro _wasn't_ there to save her. Yes, the other girls were there, she wasn't alone, but it was still different. Half of them didn't even know how to fight for real.

[According to Rokudo Mukuro and certain parts of the internet:

**It is a law of the known universe that, if any amount of young women go into battle against one creepy man in a universe where magic exists or magic powers can be utilized, it is a given fact that the creepy man will be able to summon, create, or control something large, slimy and tentacled. It is an unfortunate factor that cannot be avoided.**]

Chrome suddenly realized why Mukuro had instructed them to wear pants. She was eternally grateful she'd listened.

Glo Xinia smiled a very creepy smile upon realizing who exactly he'd run into, and started gushing on and on about something that Chrome decided to tune out, because it sounded remarkably like the same exact thing he'd said to her the first time she'd met him and she really didn't need to hear it ever again.

But then she snapped back to attention when she heard him say, "And you even brought some tasty little friends for me to play with when I'm done with you? How thoughtful!"

_What?_

An image flashed through Chrome's mind of the battle she'd conducted with Glo in the future that would never be, only in the image it wasn't her fighting Glo; it was Kyoko and Haru, and they were unarmed and losing and _tentacles_ and _Goddammit, Mukuro-sama, why couldn't you ever learn to keep your mind to yourself and not leave knowledge like this behind?_

Chrome was not previously aware that she could actually display emotions other than shy and scared without extreme effort, so it startled even her when she stomped straight up to Glo Xinia (he'd been edging toward her during his tirade of creepiness, so it wasn't very far to stomp), gritted her teeth, and defiantly kneed him in the balls.

"Leave my friends alone, pervert," she growled, and then twirled her trident in the air, slammed it to the ground, and summoned illusionary fire pillars out of the ground in a fit of actual Chrome Dokuro anger.

And promptly set off every alarm in the hallway.

"Run before they send in reinforcements!" Bianchi shouted, grabbing Chrome by the arm before she could do any more damage to Glo and dragging her down the hall with the other girls.

"I'm gonna kill him," Chrome hissed. "I swear I will!"

The girls located an empty room and barricaded themselves inside of it.

"Chrome," Bianchi started, placing both hands on Chrome's shoulders. "What were you thinking, attacking someone that strong like that?"

"I was thinking," she hissed, "that I didn't want that man to do what I thought he was going to do, and I was thinking of the battle I fought against him in the future, and I was thinking that I was very, very angry." With that, Chrome pulled out of Bianchi's grasp and sank to the floor with a look of shock on her face. For once, she'd done it. She's said what she'd meant, without any inhibitions. She'd spoken her mind.

_For once,_ she thought, _I spoke up. And if I did it once, I can do it again. Confidence, Chrome. Confidence. You can stand up to _Glo Xinia_ of all people, maybe you can stand up to M.M. and Ken. Maybe… maybe I could even tell _that _person_ _that I like him…_

"Chrome-chan?" Haru said, kneeling down in front of her. "You're kinda talking to yourself. Muttering under your breath, like. It's sorta creepy."

"Sorry," Chrome mumbled, picking herself up off the floor. _I'm just so happy with myself…_

At that moment, the door to the room flew open and the girls spun around to see Glo Xinia standing there, looking very angry (and also like he was still in a fair amount of pain).

"Chrome Dokuro… I'm going to get you for that," he growled eerily.

"Yeah, how about not?" Bianchi retorted, whipping out a plate of purple-fuming sludge that Chrome hesitated to label as food (_where_ she kept getting this stuff was anybody's guess) and throwing it at Glo. He dodged easily, because hand-thrown projectiles are only a true danger if you're slow or you're dealing with Xanxus at close range. But as he dodged, Haru went straight for him with her wooden sword, glittering with Lightning flames, and whacked him in the side.

"Now, Hana-chan!" Bianchi called. "Open the box weapon and finish this before he has a chance to attack us back!"

Hana stared at the box weapon for a moment, and then gave Bianchi a look like she didn't understand basic Japanese.

"Light the flame again," Kyoko instructed, "And-"

"Why don't I give a demonstration first?" sneered Glo, and he opened his box weapon.

_Maybe it'll be the owl one,_ Chrome hoped futilely. However, due to the issues of space-time being a bitch, Glo's owl box had already been transported to the past in the possession of Chrome herself, and as such, Glo no longer had it.

Chrome cringed and everyone else backed up in terror as the Kraken box was unleashed.

"Let's have some fun," hissed Glo, and Chrome realized that it didn't matter how many girls were around, because she'd gone out of the way to catch Glo's attention this time (kneeing someone in the balls is a good way to get them to focus their aggression on you and nobody else) and he was going to target _her._

As she readied her trident and mentally prepared herself for what was likely to be traumatizing in some way, shape or form, she mentally thanked Mukuro again for convincing her to not wear a skirt.

**You're very welcome, Chrome**_**,**_ Mukuro thought back, and Chrome swore inwardly at the fact that he was probably listening in now. **But could you answer one burning query for me, while I can still contact you like this? It's still fading in and out.**

_ What is it?_

**You're inside Melone Base, aren't you?**

No point in hiding it now.

**And Tsunayoshi's female friends are with you, aren't they?**

_Please don't tell him_.

**I don't need to. Irie Shouichi already did. **

_ Please apologize to Boss for me_.

**I don't think that will help. He is, as you say, "flipping the fuck out."**

_Mukuro-sama?_

**What?**

_I'm sorry, but I'm sort of busy. I've got to go fight a tentacle monster._

**Oh, okay.**

**…**

** …**

** Wait, **_**what?**_

* * *

><p>Yaaaay, cliffhanger. I'm a bitch.<p>

Anyway, I'm honestly sorry I've been procrastinating the hell out of this story and I'm not gonna go into the whole shitlist of stuff I've been doing when I should've been working on this instead and just go ahead and lie and say it's the start of the school year and I've been busy. Let's go with that.

I've told you why this story was started: feminism in shounen manga fandom. But do you want to know why I actually went through with it and continued writing? There are several reasons, but aside from general awesomeness, it was something that occurred in this very chapter. One of the reasons I kept going with this story was because I really wanted someone to kick Glo Xinia in the nuts, and I was dead-set on making it happen.

AND NOW I ACTUALLY HAVE AN ENDING FOR THIS WOOHOOOOO well sort of. I have a few different things that will eventually lead to an ending and I sorta need a plot thread to connect them all up but that's okay because I've been winging it on everything else so far, so why not keep doing what works and wing it the rest of the way too?

I'm probably going to end up doing a lot of the writing for this during French or History or English class, so I can't yet say if I'm going to get into a consistent update schedule. More on that later.

Reviews will be fed into a quantum transducer and converted into motivation and energy.


	8. public service announcement

so about this story

I'm planning on re-writing it, now that the Reborn manga has finished, as a sort of a re-vamping/re-thinking of the story I guess? I really love Backup Guardians to death and I absolutely don't wanna let the idea die, but I went back and tried to re-read it like a month ago and the fact of the matter is I wrote it when I was sixteen and it shows and I want to do a better job with it

so I'm gonna leave it here, but I'm also gonna rewrite it. it's gonna be cross-posted both here and on Archive of Our Own, and if I can figure out how to add pictures then there are gonna be pictures to go with it ;D

I'm currently in the process of rethinking all the logistics of the story and finishing out the plot, so bear with me for like a month while I essentially reboot the entire fic and start writing it again. I think I can still do something really phenomenal and hilarious with it, and like I said, the idea's too good to just give up on!  
>What I plan to do is like three things:<p>

1) significantly decrease the focus on shipping, sort of to mirror how KHR itself treats romantic stuff- like not to eliminate it completely, because Tsuna's crush on Kyoko/Chrome's crush on Mukuro in the actual manga is still important, but to tone it down and not have literally every character have to be romantically paired up because it detracts from the plot and the overlying friendship themes I wanted to include. (Also, despite it being my otp, I can't include 6918 in the reboot because of all the things that totally derailed the plot and honestly didn't matter a bit to the rest of the story, that was the worst. But I don't think most people will mind if I leave that aspect out, apparently amusing though it was?)

2) I'm sort of messing around with the idea of Kyoko having Sky flames instead of Sun flames, and switching a couple others up too. I want to keep Bianchi and Chrome where they are because that's canon, and I want to keep Haru with Lightning flames because I like that a lot, but the switch I'd be making leaves the final lady guardian lineup as this: Sky=Kyoko, Lightning=Haru, Storm=Bianchi, Mist=Chrome, Sun=I-Pin, Rain=Hana and Cloud=M.M.. There's a couple reasons for this, one of which is that I wanted to include M.M. somehow because she's funny and I appreciate her character more now (plus she's another Reborn lady that gets trivialized a bunch by the fandom so I want her to get back her glory), and also because I-Pin and Rain flames really don't make a whole lot of sense. M.M. makes more sense as the Cloud guardian anyway, because she's even more distant and independent of the group than Hana is, and Hana being the calm voice of reason makes more sense as Rain than I-Pin ever did.

3) Actually know how the end of the story is going to go before I start writing it. As it stands, I wrote the original story on the fly, frequently during school when I should've been paying attention, and the plot sort of wrote itself in the moment. If I thought something was funny at the time, it got incorporated. There was zero planning, other than "I really want Chrome to kick Glo Xinia in the cajones" and that was it.  
>(that's still a thing that's gonna happen, by the way)<p>

So anyway! Stay tuned! I'll put something up here when the new story starts, so don't unfollow this story if you want updates on when the reboot's occurring!

-Nat Roze

(At this point also suggestions or comments would be much appreciated as I attempt to rework this. I like hearing peoples' input, and I want to write a story that lots of people want to read, especially the folks who stuck with me as I pretty much rocketed around like a maniac writing the original version of this... so if you have any suggestions or ideas, let me hear em! They might make it in, they might not, or they could inspire something completely different and wonderful to occur in the story! You never know! Have a great start to your summers, everyone!)


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